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FULL UP AND FED UP 



THE WORKER'S MIND IN CROWDED BRITAIN 



BY 

WHITING WILLIAMS 

AUTHOB or "what's ON THi! WOREEb's MraS ' 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1921 



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COPTRIQHT, 1921, BY 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Published October, 1921 



OCT 19 1921 



THE 8CRI8NER PHE88 



0)CI.A630507 



FOREWORD 

Nobody could have been more surprised than myself to 
find that the months of 1919 spent in the labor gangs of 
America made almost unavoidable a few months of 1920 
in the labor gangs of Great Britain. 

In this wise: 

Following the return to white-collared ways, the country 
gave surprising approval to the following ^^Big Four'' 
factors which lay, in my belief, at the bottom of the 
labor problem here in our own country: 

I. The huge importance to the working man — ^and that 
means to us all — of that prayer of the industrial era: ^'Give 
us this day our daily Job !" The job it is which affords to 
each of us the platform upon which we stand as members 
of the modern industrial commonwealth. The job it is 
which connects each of us up with the doings of others in 
a way to make us important to them and so to ourselves. 
The job it is which serves as a crank-shaft by which we get 
the satisfaction of seeing the forces of our own hves geared 
up with the forces of others for turning the wheels of the 
world's work — and so for finding ourselves not altogether 
valueless. Job gone? — ^then the rightness of the rest of 
the circle of our interests gives us Httle satisfaction — in 
spite of such testimony as that of the hopeful wife who 
got out to inspect the rear tire and reported, ^^Well, John, 
it is quite flat at the bottom. But the rest of it is fine!" 

II. The importance of the part played by our bodies, 
as the result of their effort to adapt themselves to the con- 
ditions of working and living imposed by the job. Espe- 
cially the power for industrial and civic evil possessed 
and wielded by those unheavenly twins of ^^ Tiredness and 



vi FOREWORD 

Temper ^^ — the TNT that causes so many explosions in 
the trenches of both the family and the factory life. 

III. The importance of the mental conditions of the 
man on the job — the threat of wide-spread evil to be found 
in the huge volume of misunderstanding between modern y 
employer and modern employee. 

IV. The vital importance of what can be called the 
spiritual conditions which all of us hope to find wrapped 
up in our job: the deep-down mainspring of our desire to 
^^be somebody'^ and to ^^ count ^^ most of all by reason of 
the thing we do — to show ourselves men by virtue of show- 
ing ourselves work-men. 

Something like these four factors, so it has appeared to 
me, furnish a means of breaking up the problem of indus- 
trial relations and so of locating the particular cause of the 
difficulty in any one case. When a man feels that his body, 
mind, and spirit are all connected up with each other and 
with that crank-shaft of the job, then he laughs the laugh 
of joy. Then, too, he laughs the laugh of scorn not only 
at the agitator but also at those who would try to persuade 
him that work is a cruel hang-over from the days when our 
common ancestor was thrust out of the Garden of Do- 
nothing for earning his bread with the sweat of his brow. 

At least something like that, I am sure, is true for America 
and Americans. 

But is that because we are Americans or because we 
are humans? 

To answer the question required the rather reluctant 
donning of the overalls and the undergoing of the discom- 
forts of the labor gang in some other country. 

To what extent the experiences reported in these pages 
answer the question which carried me into them — and to 
what extent they appear to make it desirable to try to get 
the feelings of the workers of France or Germany, or Italy 
and Spain — the reader may decide. 



CONTENTS 

PART I— WITH THE WORKERS 

CHAPTEB PAGE 

I. Into Steange Waters — from a London Dock ... 3 

II. By the Smelters and Stoves of South Wales ... 26 

III. "Back to the Mines'' and the "Bolshies''! ... 61 

IV. ''What's the Matter with Glasgow?" ..... 123 

V. With the 'Ands on Smelting Stage, Cinder Pit akd 

Cast Bed 170 

VI. Midst the Miners and Machinists of the Mild Mid- 
lands 205 

VII. Living the Double Life in London 234 

VIII. The Worst Job yet 275 

PART n-ONE INTERPRETATION 

IX. "Full Up!" 285 

X. "Fed Up!" . . 294 

XI. How Many Jobs to a Nation? 301 

XII. The Domestic Pay Envelope and "International 

Creative Evolution" 308 

XIII. Can We Get "the Air" to the "Working Faces" in 

THE World Factory Mine? 318 



vu 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Over 200,000 of Britain's 1,200,000 coal-miners live in the 

famous South Wales District Frontispiece 

PACING PAGE 

Dockers unloading copra or cocoanut-meat for making oil, cattle- 
food, and oleomargarine at a London dock 18 



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They tells us as 'ow we should sive our money. So 'ere we are ! " . 18 

Blast-furnaces of this hand-charged t3^e are now being replaced by 

machine-charged furnaces of newer and larger type .... 28 

Salt firemen of Northern England 94 

f 'E been now," his wife said, *^as good a mon as 'e been bawd be- 
fore — awnd no one could say more than thot ! " 94 

f Dirty Dick's my name, but I'm not dirty-minded " .... 94 

A saloon or "pub" in London's East End as a "neighborhood 

centre " to which the babe in arms is becoming accustomed early 134 

Children in a crowded Glasgow district . 134 

Crowds listening to the smooth-tongued salesmen of "riot, racing, or 
religion — ^representatives of a better chance in either this world 
or the world to come " 168 

The crowd waits as the bookies mark up their preferences at the 

week-end whippet races . . . . . . . . . . . 168 

Separating the "pigs" from the "sow" in a Middlesbrough "cast- 
bed" 182 

The author as he is and as he was when in search of work in Britain 266 



PART I 
WITH THE WORKERS 



WITH THE WORKERS 

CHAPTER I 

INTO STRANGE WATERS — FROM A LONDON DOCK 

Whitechapel, East End, London; 
June 29, 1920. 

The most surprising thing is the interest every one here 
shows in my plan, queer and strange though it seems to them. 
The head of a group of manufacturers has ah-eady given 
his expert approval of the idea to begin in the South Wales 
tin-plate and coal districts; go thence to the Clyde bank, 
near Glasgow, where the very nmnerous radical workers 
are taken much more seriously than their less active though 
louder-talking comrades among the Welsh workers; ending 
up with the more conservative and newer steel centre of 
the British Pittsburgh, Middlesbrough, near Newcastle, and 
finally the older Sheffield district. This adviser is a college 
man and seems to feel that the freemasonry of college men 
— evidently more marked over here — ^would require him to 
help me if nothing else. In that connection he said yester- 
day that the English worker is Ukely to be suspicious of me 
because: 

"It will seem a bit odd to them, you know, that yoiu: 
friends are willing to let you go so low. That wouldn't be 
done over here. A decent job, you see, would be found for 
you by some one if for nothing else than to save a fellow 
member of one's own class.'' 

But he seemed to think that I might meet all that by 
letting on that I was a hard drinker ! 

3 



4 FULL UP AND FED UP 

Similarly the head of a big firm of engineers and equippers 
of steel plants was not at all of the suspicious sort that 
some friends at home had made me think I might en- 
counter: 

^'Your plan of first-hand study of this labor problem 
is odd enough, but it certainly has enormous possibihties, 
and I want to help every bit I can/^ Then he proceeded 
to ask if I wouldn't do him the favor of doing a few days' 
work among the bricklayers who are in his employ build- 
ing a big glass plant, and who are said to represent one of 
the hardest trades to get along with in the empire. Inas- 
much as the job is near by, in London, it seems a proper 
way of repaying the various courtesies he will extend dur- 
ing the summer. 

In one sense this country seems to be in a very bad way 
in this matter of labor, in another not so bad. The sub- 
ject does not seem on people's tongues to the same extent 
as in America. The fact that it is all put over into politics 
appears to give the man on the street the idea that it is 
by way of being worked out. Then the fact that the unions 
are so much on the job further supports the idea that it 
will somehow take care of itself without the ordinary citi- 
zen's bothering. 

^^Practically every one of our workers is in some union 
or other," was the way an official of an iron and steel manu- 
facturers' association put it. '^With every one of these 
unions where it is at all feasible we have had for the last 
thirty years an agreement to pay wages on the basis of ton- 
nage, and also on a sliding scale according to the selling 
price of the product. In the case of the one solitary strike 
of any consequence in these thirty years, everything was 
settled by the estabhshment of this rule of sliding scale. 
This the makers had heretofore held out against in that 
particular connection. Since then there has been no trouble 
anywhere of any size — that is, with the steel men. We do 



INTO STRANGE WATERS 5 

have trouble occasionally with the special trades, like the 
steam-fitters, machinists, and others. You see, to them 
steel is only a side issue. Of the distinctly steel unions 
the representatives go over the company's sales books every 
three months. In that way they make sure that the selUng 
price for the three months' period has been as represented, 
and on the basis of any change of price the wage agreement 
is continued. In America I understand this sUding-scale 
arrangement is practised, at least so far as steel is concerned, 
only in the steel-sheet industry. I presume it is in opera- 
tion there as the direct result of your importation of our 
Welsh 'sheet-workers.' '' 

Among the workers in general labor matters appear far 
from quiet and contented. The Labor Party in its annual 
session at Scarborough has just now publicly stated that, 
in its opinion, ^'In spite of all kinds of conciliation ma- 
chinery the relations between the workers and the owners 
were never worse." It intimates that all the idealism of 
the war has been completely lost, with nothing done in 
any way to make the war worth its prodigious cost. The 
party is apparently very strongly for nationahzation of 
coal and all sorts of things. In several of its proposals it 
is said to be doing a certain amount of pussyfooting, as 
befits an organization which must keep its eye on the votes 
— ^which, by the way, Mr. Gompers and Mr. J. P. Frye of 
our own A. F. of L. give as the reason why they oppose 
the Labor Party idea for America. The party also turns 
down government purchase of the liquor trade and eschews 
prohibition, but does go on record for local option, evidently 
having in mind that this is the way things began to happen 
with us. A well-known American official, by the way, 
remarked to-day that in his beUef this coimtry would go 
dry in five years — largely as the result of getting the wet- 
and-dry issue into the field of good or bad industry here 
as at home. 



6 FULL UP AND FED UP 

But, even though the average citizen here doesn't seem 
as keen to talk about the labor problem as in 'Hhe States," 
still two things come strongly into the view of the newcomer. 
For one thing, the country is certainly having a great time 
with strikes — I should say at least quite as bad if not worse 
than we. The day we landed, the National Union of Gas- 
Workers was threatening strike in a very serious way. They 
wanted a forty-four-hour week (now forty-seven), double 
time for Sundays, week-ends, etc., with ten shillings a week 
immediate advance. Gas seem^ to sell already at ten or 
twelve shiUings for 1,000 cubic feet! The wireless men on 
the big liners were also preventing sailing because of a strike. 
The dockers have lately got a very successful award of two 
shilUngs an hour — quite high here — ^but are now wanting 
more work badly. In fact, my pet idea about the impor- 
tance of the job was upheld before the end of my very first 
Enghsh newspaper page! There stood the words: ^'The 
dockers' great need is not for registration, not for govern- 
ment measures, not even for a rise in wages. The dockers' 
great need is regular work.^^ 

Even the notably happy workers of Lord Leverholme at 
Port Sunlight have been announced as having a dispute on. 
Of course, the strike of the munition workers in Ireland 
and the civil war in Londonderry have also been much in 
the papers. Besides the poUtical factors in the Irish mix- 
up, it seems that much of the trouble has its roots in the 
economic problem. One correspondent says that serious 
trouble always starts when the sons of the Catholics have 
difficulty getting good jobs with the Ulstermen, who are 
reported at the head of most of the business concerns in 
''Derry," and in many other factory cities. The small 
number of Irish factory cities, especially in the most un- 
happy part of Ireland, is given as one reason why so little 
interest seems to be taken in the whole Irish problem by 
the average business man here. The possibility of an Irish 



INTO STRANGE WATERS 7 

rail strike seems to be very much on the mind of J. H. 
Thomas, the conservative head of the Railway Men's 
Union. 

The papers have also been carrying word of a threatened 
strike of the (unionized) bank clerks of Scotland and else- 
where. In near-by columns appears a statement of the 
Minister of Labor that '^Food in May was 146 per cent 
over pre-war; in June 155 per cent.'' (This is not quite the 
same as the cost of living, into which other items must be 
figured with appropriate ^^ weighting.") The same minis- 
try also stated that the percentage of unemployed among 
workers covered by the insm^ance list was 2.68 on May 28 
and 2.80 on April 30, with conditions good in most trades 
except boot and shoe and the weaving section of the cotton 
trade. Weekly wages of about 1,700,000 work-people 
showed a total increase 750,000 pounds sterUng. This 
represents those increases recently secured by the dock 
laborers, also others won by the building trades, dress- 
making, and cotton and woollen operatives. About 250,- 
000 workers also lessened their working week by about 
two and a half hours. 

Altogether it would look as though labor matters were 
moving. 

The second of these noticeable things is the general con- 
viction in pubUc and business circles that the English worker 
is lying down on the job disgracefully — ^and that nothing 
can be done about it. 

^'You'll find all our workers taking things jolly easy/' 
appears to be the universal testimony except when it is: 
''Well, you'll find our men doing much less in a day than 
yours." Usually the blame is placed upon the union. 
''We can't sell our furnaces on the basis of the men it will 
save, because the unions make everybody use so many men 
for so many furnaces, whether or no. So we can only talk 
the saving of coal," said a salesman from America. 



8 FULL UP AND FED UP 

How this will turn out to be in actuality it will be highly 
interesting to see. 

Of one thing I am pretty sure — namely, that the roots 
of whatever loafing there is — and perhaps also of the ap- 
parently universal membership in the union — ^will be found 
very close to the same thing that is on the mind of the dock 
workers — the daily job, ^^ regular work.'^ That seems to 
be one reason why the unions are not apparently defending 
the government's Employment Exchanges, now under criti- 
cism as expensive. They pretty generally want to handle 
the getting of jobs for their men themselves as a funda- 
mental service for their members. 

^' We said to our bricklayers,'^ said my engineering friend, 
" * here we are paying you more than the union rate and yet 
you throw us down whenever you jolly please, or when 
some other local asks you to. Why don't you chuck the 
union ? ' They turned around on us at once and said : ' Can 
you guarantee us a job for every day in the year we need 
one?'^' 

Well, we shall see what we shall see. I^m sure it's going 
to be worth while, anyway — ^whatever happens. Because 
from this set-up it is evident, surely, that the problem isn't 
so different as to prevent my experiences here from being 
useful in giving a better light into our problem back home. 

And now good night to get ready for moseying noncha- 
lantly around onto that bricklayer's helper's job to-morrow. 

Later — June 30th. 

Am told to-day that the imeasiness noticed in the cur- 
rent papers comes from a very distinct increase of unem- 
ployment within the last two or three weeks — since the 
period covered by the Labor Ministry's figures. People 
are evidently having much the same scare we had back 
home two months ago. 

Should have mentioned last night, also, the doings on 



INTO STRANGE WATERS 9 

shipboard coming over. Though the boat was operating 
under American registry, most of the men were English 
and reflected EngUsh rather than American conditions. 
The stewards had a near-strike because they were being 
worked over ten hours per day with no extra pay whatever 
for overtime. The difficulty was narrowly averted by the 
steward's promising the extra pay. The second engineer 
was as black as coal when he took me down into the stoke- 
hole, but the thing that worried him most — ^it came to his 
lips time after time — ^was his beloved, though I must say, 
bedraggled-looking, engine: 

^'We used to be able to get in a few coal-passers, and 
have every rod as clean as your face around here. But it 
can't be done now — ^against union rules to bring 'em in 
and the men themselves won't do it, not even when we're 
in port, and they've nothing else to do !" 

Whitechapel, London, 
July 1, 1920. 

A long and slow-moving, but very worth-while day. Like 
many others of its kind it has been a demonstration of the 
way men wear their hearts, if not on their sleeves, then at 
least much closer to the surface than we white-collared folk 
are apt to think. 

In the morning I got again into my old clothes, with many 
misgivings, feeling myself very much a stranger in a far 
country, and even less able to guess what might happen 
to me in these parts than when the other start was made 
a year and a half ago. In the restaurant where I got eggs, 
bacon, a pot of tea, and bread and butter for the surprising 
price of one and ten pence — ^about thirty-five cents accord- 
ing to the present exchange which gives nearly five shillings 
to the dollar — I felt sure I was dressed too badly for the 
place, xmtil some others who looked still tougher and nearer 
the edge of things were good enough to com§ in, One of 



10 FULL UP AND FED UP 

these asked the girl for tea and one egg, and then proceeded 
to unwrap some pieces of bread he had brought with him. 

When I finally got to the bricklayer's helper's job, I was 
again pleased with the way the other unskilled workers 
who lined up waiting for a chance at similar jobs took me 
in without an instant's delay. The boss of the job, how- 
ever, turned me down cold — ^nicely but firmly: 

'^Matter of fact, I've got more men than I know what 
to do with now." 

^^Yer see, it's the skilled men as is wanted — ^bricklayers 
and the likes o' that. So they cawn't take more of us," 
one of my fellow applicants explained. 

There were so many kinds of workers all about the plant 
that was being erected for making bottles by machinery 
according to an American patent, that no one seemed to 
object to my loafing around to see and hear all possible. 
I must say that there seemed extremely little loafing by 
the bricklayers or their assistants who brought them the 
hod-loads of bricks and mortar up the ladders from below. 
Still there was a good deal of eating of an occasional 
sandwich and drinking from a tea or coffee can. The young 
American in charge of the installation of the patent process 
— he either didn't think I was an American or else was un- 
wiUing to admit it for fear I'd strike him for a job — is quite 
sure that these workers do not get as much done in a day 
as ours. But they all kept on the job very well, except 
the carpenters, who would not work as long as it continued 
''rainin' quite tidy, you know." One of the machine- 
fitters was evidently loafing and ready to talk with a 
stranger in explanation of the furnace he was fixing for 
carrying the moulded bottles through on a continuous chain. 
His partner berated him for sitting there ^'like a bloomin' 
log," while he went in search of a stick long enough to make 
a measurement. ''For every one o' these things we got to 
go find a new stick. If only we'd save 'em we'd save our- 



INTO STRANGE WATERS 11 

selves, too. But what's the odds?'' About that time he 
made me feel as if I was back home on some factory job 
as he exclaimed: ^^Ah, there's the Mogul! I mustn't sit 
here like this !" Whereupon he caught up a handy wrench 
and went through the motions of tightening a bolt! Of 
course, to help him fool his boss I sauntered away. 

The plans of the plant represent the last word in labor 
and time-saving machinery, but the contractors are cer- 
tainly using many hand-wound or horse-drawn windlasses 
for clumsily raising all sorts of materials to the high plat- 
forms. The finished plant is expected to turn out some- 
thing like 5,000 gross of all kinds of bottles every twenty- 
four hours — ^without a glass-blower in the place ! 

^^ There's nothin' in the wye of a job to be got outside, 
anywheres now, and that's the truth." That was the bin-- 
den of the conversation an hour later when I dropped into 
a cheap eating-place in Woolwich near the government ship- 
yard, and about a mile from the arsenal. 

*^Yes, I took a few days off — told the Colonel I was re- 
signin' for a week, ye understand — and looked and looked 
everywhere and no good it was to me, so I came back," a 
red-haired man from *Hhe West of Ireland" put in with a 
bitter smile. 

"Unemployment insurance? Yes, fifteen bob a week! 
That 'ardly pays for your fags ! What good does it do you, 
hi?" That was the way a serious-looking chap with an 
attractive fac6 and a linen duster of a clerk's coat put it. 
1 "But no wonder there's the 'igh cost of livin' with all the 
money's bein' spent by the government — 3,000,000 pounds 
they're talkin' about now fer givin' the soldiers a bally lot 
o' scarlet dress uniforms that's no good to nobody." 

"An' all the waste and the loafin' there in the shipyard ! 
Why, if I was asked to destriye all the stuff that many men's 
asked to destriye right over there — ^war stuff, you know, 
Uke the tables that was used by the German prisoners, and 



12 FULL UP AND FED UP 

that's havin' their legs knocked off so they can pack 'em 
away nice and regular and miUtary like, you know — ^well, 
I'd fair tell 'em they could have my job ! W'y, we all spend 
hours in there movin' stuff from here over to there, and 
from there over to that place, and then, after we go along, 
a new gang moves 'em from there to back where they was 
when we found 'em. And even at that, not one of us does 
a decent and self-respectin^ day's work." 

'^But when you 'ave your money," breaks in the clerk 
again, ^'your three-pound-fourteen a week, what 'ave you 
got ? If you 'ave childern, a man simply can't live." 

When he added that, for one thing, there was too much 
class idea in it all, I expected to see it take a different turn 
from the Irishman's cut-in: 

''You've said it ! W'y, let a man walk down street with 
his workin' clothes on, and out of a dozen girls he passes 
not two of 'em will give him so much as a look, to say 
nothing of answering his how do you do ! But when he's got 
some good clothes on as a clerk and rubs two shillings to- 
gether then they come his way nice enough !" 

''Well, I'm off for Canada the end of the summer," he 
went on as he produced a letter from a pal who reported 
with great detail the values he was getting for his money 
over there in the way of laimdry, meals, etc. The letter 
concluded with " — and in four or five years of this I'm com- 
ing back home to buy the finest 'pub' you got in your whole 
blamed country and take life easy." 

The evident effect of the reading was so strong that it 
coincided with my earUer observations that it is by means 
of such first-hand testimony that most of the decisions of 
the workers — if not of most of the rest of us — are made 
from day to day. "My brother, he over here, send for 
me," the foreign-born workers in America were always say- 
ing in explanation of their comings over or their movings 
from one place in the country to another. Such com- 



INTO STRANGE WATERS 13 

munications serve as the great means of instruction about 
things they cannot see, just as the eyes of their daily ex- 
perience teach them from moment to moment what to think 
about the things going on around them. Much of the whole 
attitude of the workers toward government there at home, 
I found thus based not so much on what they read in the 
papers as on what they saw going on around them on their 
job. Said one of this group: 

'^Well, I tried hard enough to buy one of the cases they 
make for carryin* the parts of a cannon — cost three pounds 
to make, they did, and they're sellin' ^em at auction for 
two shillin' ! 'But, of course,' they says to me, 'we can't 
sell 'em in less 'n lots of fifty ! ' And then Lloyd George 
and the rest of 'em comes down and pats us on the back — 
and wouldn't know us from Adam any other time — no, nor 
care." 

''Well, let me tell you, we'll all be lucky to have our jobs 
this winter. It's goin' to be a 'ard time, in my opinion," 
broke in a very sedate and quiet person of the head-ma- 
chinist type. 

" I don't know what brings you over here," the red-haired 
and fiery-dispositioned man from Ireland confided after- 
ward when he hailed me on the street and we were alone. 
"But for Heaven's sake, don't think o' working here! 
Everybody loses all his ambition here — they hold onto the 
same job exactly now that they had twenty year ago. W'y, 
you know, even the tramway men call out, 'Convalescent's 
Home!' or 'Saint's Rest!' when they stop here or at the 
arsenal! I give you my word, they just don't remember 
how to work after they's been here a few years. It's aw- 
ful! Of course, you'll get your three-pounds-fourteen, 
hut you^ll he disrespected — by yourself and everybody else! 
Here am I — nothin' but common labor — at the bottom of 
the whole pile and shootin' match! And I've had forty- 
seven public appearances ridin' the best horses in the coun- 



14 FULL UP AND FED UP 

try! That's what the war has done for me! Now, my 
friend in Canada — he's better circinnstanced than I — that 
is, he's not married. But my wife — well, she's young but 
she's wise, you understand. I was sajdn' to her last night, 
^Now here we are, we're fairly comfortable.' We live with 
her old man and that helps, so we can save about fifteen 
shiUin' a week besides takin' care of our three-year-old. 
* We can go to a show when we want to,' I says, ^and have 
a drink when we want it. And we're as good as a lot of 
the rest of the people here in this town,' I says. ^But where 
will we be in ten years from now — when I'm forty years 
old? Where'U we be then?' I says. An' she says she's 
game, so I'm goin' to be lookin' up a White Star liner one 
of these days and see if I can't get started as a steward or 
something. Somehow or other I got to make somethin' of 
myself. I'll fair die if I got to stick around and be gen- 
eral labor all my life. And I'm gettin' old just worryin' 
about what I should do — till I think I could fair shoot 
Llide George if he was standin' there now." 
And then he proceeded to hand me a jolt: 
^'Course that — even that — wouldn't be so bad for me. 
My brother and me — well, we mm*dered a policeman in 
Ireland only last winter. You see, he was arrestin' a man 
and we tried to take the man away from him and my 
brother he tapped him too hard with an iron pipe he had. 
And after he was down I kicked him in the face — and he 
seemed to be done for worse than we thought for. So the 
rest of 'em said we didn't ought to leave him in his misery 
that way. So we all went at it and finished him off. That's 
the way they do it in Ireland — they don't believe in lettin' 
people lie in their misery — and everybody helps. The jury 
disagreed three times, so we was let off. My mother she 
thinks I'm pretty bloody bad and writes for me not to 
come home now that so many gangs is gettin' together and 
doin' mostly nothin' but murderin'. No, I'd not advise 
you to look for work over there. 



INTO STRANGE WATERS 15 

''But there's too much bloody misery right here — and 
that's a fact — and that's what's worryin' me. There, 
look at those fellows in fine clothes! This one's getting 
exactly eight bob a week less than I, but he's payin' his 
father nothin' a week for his board, so he can loaf and get 
along. The same with these dressed-up chaps over there — 
and all their wound stripes will only get 'em more trouble 
findin' work — there's 250,000 soldiers out of work here 
now and 75,000 in Canada. And these fellows, at that, 
can't save much even if they ain't married. The trouble 
with a married man is that if he does save, there's always 
something happening to use up the coupla quid (pounds) 
he thought he had laid away for good — the baby's got to 
have some shoes you hadn't counted on or something — 
and after that's happened a few times and you see you're 
no better off than you were before, w'y then you chuck 
the whole bloody idea! Well, there's the bell and I'll 
have to go in and support the government by movin' 
things around some more — or destriyin' 'em. Good luck 
to you." 

Yesterday I was told that Woolwich arsenal is in charge 
of a very progressive man who is much interested in the 
plan of keeping the organization going by making engines 
and similar suppUes in between wars, as it were. The 
place now keeps something Uke 17,000 men busy with all 
their operations as compared with 90,000 in war time. 

Across the river at the Prince Albert docks I watched 
some very big strong men let a helper swing back and 
forth great quarters of beeves, as they came along suspended 
from monorail conveyers off a great boat which had brought 
7,000 tons of them from the Argentine. When they swung 
high enough so the men could get their shoulders under 
them, they marched with them up the incline and pitched 
them jauntily down into the hold of a barge or lighter 
which would doubtless require the services of other men 
to take them out again farther up the river in London. 



16 ' FULL UP AND FED UP 

^^ Three thousand of 'em in a day — and fifty bob (shilling) 
a day a man for doin' it (two pounds ten or $12.50 at ordi- 
nary exchange). Why, the fellows that has done this too 
regular ain't (pronounced eyent) the size of a half a man 
now. Not a woman as would look at 'em ! Well, I've been 
everywhere — ^in the States, Australia, New Zealand! But 
I guess I like this better than all. And this job keeps me 
fit — only when the lighter sets as high as this and you have 
to go up the incline — that's what tykes it out of you. But 
this job — ^well, it makes you go at a big steak this way — 
gobble, gobble ! It's fair medicine for me, this job." 

He had been three years and fom* months in the army — 
as everybody among the workers and I guess everybody 
else, for that matter, seems to have been — and was as big 
and handsome and attractive a worker as I've seen in a 
long time. I kept wanting to say that we needed men like 
him in my country. I thought he might be a hard drinker 
— and perhaps he is — but he surprised me. That was 
when, after he had expressed his wish for a drink instead 
of the cup of tea which the company furnishes the gang, 
he came out with : 

^^Yes, I'd like to see it dry over here, too. And there's 
many others as would say that here if they spoke their 
minds. Why, right over there in that boat there from 
America there's men that'll tell you, ^Why, in the country 
we come from we've got friends as was in the gutter, and 
now, by God, they're wearin' a collar and tie.' " 

If the workers can have an abundance of such ^^demon- 
stration" the world won't be long going dry! 

With that he ran off to take his turn at the tea, beer not 
being available on the dock. Tea is served to all the clerks 
in London offices at four as regular as clockwork. Some of 
the heads have told me that an amazing amount of work 
is done between that and closing time at five-thirty. 

I would give a lot to know the full details of the major 



INTO STRANGE WATERS 17 

factors in the life of the next man who topped off my day. 
He was old and thin and badly weather-beaten, but evi- 
dently still very active, as we got to talking on the foot- 
bridge going over the railway near the docks. 

^^Yes, I'm a docker now. An' during the war tVas a 
good job — ^with men scarce and wages 'igh. Now there's 
plenty o' work but plenty o' men, too. It's five weeks 
since I been able to pay me imion dues. Thot's saxpence 
the week. There's been nothin' fer me to do but take the 
chawnce of pickin' up a coupla bob 'ere carryin' somun's 
bags or boxes — and a-sleepin' wherever I could at night. 
I 'aven't 'ad a chawnce ter wash me face the day to-day. 
That's after forty years knockin' around on the sea in 
'windbags' and steamers — all kinds o' ships and ivery 
part of the world — ^in the stoke-hole and on the decks since 
I wuz fifteen years old. Me family? Ah, they've all flew 
away, ivery wan of thim — ^with two sons thot went down 
with the army. I'm the only wan left — and I suppose 
I'U be agoin' wan of these days; they say iverybody's got 
to. Yis, it's been worth while — with a lot of knockin' 
about." And then his soul seemed to blaze up, as, with 
shaking finger, he shouted: 

^^But they's men in there — thousands of 'em — thot's 'ad 
a job ivery day fer weeks — ivery day for weeks ! Thot's 
not right ! They should tike their turn — iverybody should 
divide up and iverybody 'ave his share o' work. Look at 
this fellow a-closin' of 'is gates afore the trine is near! 
Well, he's got Hs job and 'e's goin' ter do '^s duty and 
everybody else can look out fer 'imself !" 

As I said good-by I told him I could ask him in for a 
drink but thought he might be able to use the bob to good 
advantage to himself, and that I could spare it before get- 
ting a cattle boat back to the States. If ever face and 
arms and voice spoke thanks with the quickness of a flash 
his did, as he grabbed for my hand with his: '^Oh ! Oh !" 



18 FULL UP AND FED UP 

In an instant his eyes were commencing to be full. ^^Why, 
this'U buy me a real bed to-night !'' And again his hand 
— a horny hand it was of all that I have ever clasped — and 
again his: ^^Oh ! Oh ! That'll buy me a real bed — Good- 
by to ye and good luck to ye. I'll think of ye this night 
on me bed ! Good-by.'^ 

So; as IVe been riding back to my quarters on top of a 
bus, past mile after mile of gray slums, IVe kept repeating 
to myself: ^^Men are so much better at bottom than they 
appear on the surface — so much truer when you get a good 
close-up, local connection than by the ordinary 4ong-dis- 
tance' contacts of this specialized and classified old world 
— so much better.'' 

Whitechapel, London, 
July 3, 1920. 

It has been a day of getting closer to the Far East than 
ever before — down in the midst of the odd cargoes and the 
medley of British and Indian workers and the strange 
Oriental smells which the big ships bring into the East 
India dock. It gave a chance to jump down into the Ught- 
ers and to heft the huge ivory tusks, some of them nearly 
twelve feet long from their sharp points to where they seem 
to have been torn out by the roots — some of them colored 
like a fine old pipe, others carved fancifully to show a 
crocodile swallowing a long snake which in turn is swal- 
lowing a frog — tons and tons of these tusks thrown care- 
lessly out of the big East Indian liner into the waiting 
barge, by which most of the freight seems to be taken to 
the various markets or storage places farther up in Lon- 
don. A short distance away it was possible to taste the 
''foot sugar" from Madras or the copra or cocoanut shell 
and cocoanut ''meat" from various Oriental places — 
hardly any tastier than the sheeps' wool, the worn-out auto 
tiras, the jute, or the coffee. 

All these things seem to look good to the dockers or 




DOCKERS UXLOADIXG COPRA OR COCOANUT-MEAT FOR MAKING 
OIL, CATTLE-FOOD, AND OLEOMARGARINE AT A LONDON DOCK. 




"THEY TELLS US AS 'OW WE SHOULD SIVE OUR MONEY. 
SO 'ERE WE ARE!" 

Getting bits of coal from the ash heap in an industrial centre. (With the instinct 
of the eternal feminine, the lady has removed her cap in order to be at her best.) 



INTO STRANGE WATERS 19 

stevedores, for they spell bread and butter— or, at worst, 
^^ marge" as they call oleomargarine — at the rate of sixteen 
bob a day of eight hours. From the way they put their 
shoulders under the great bags, many of them weighing 
two hundred pounds, I'd say they aren't afraid of work by 
a long shot. As soon as the winch — or the hydraulic crane 
— ^has deposited the load of bales and bundles on the dock 
they seem to tear into them in proper style. In a moment 
they get their truck loaded and off down the way to the 
lighter, indulging occasionally in banter and language that 
would make even my old friends on the open-hearth floor 
take off their hats — some of it too ciudled for an Amer- 
ican to understand without more practice than I've had 
yet. 

^^ Thanks fer calling me a dog," came out in one dispute. 
^'Well, if 'arf of us wuz dogs, 'twould be a better warrld 
than 'tis now, becuz dogs is true and men eyent." 

One thing is sure, it is impossible to get very far away 
from the thought of the job — the steady job — while mov- 
ing aroimd among these chaps, whether inside the great 
dock's stone gate or out. My ease in talking things over 
with them grew greater after several of them came up and 
after reaching behind their ears to produce an inch or inch 
and a haK of cigarette, coolly took a light from mine with- 
out a word. The shortness of the treasured cigarettes 
may possibly be explained by the story which is said to 
be popular among the district's schoolboys — ^^The other 
day I went into a tobacconist's to get me a cigar and a 
man trod on me fingers." 

*^ There's bloody Uttle work around 'ere now," was the 
testimony of an old man of seventy who repeated the general 
complaint. ^^Durin' the war they was enough fer all — 
but ye can see all the men that's witin' fer somethin' 'ere 
to-dye. Yuss" — ^with amazing fervor when I mentioned 
the husky piece-workers of yesterday afternoon, — ^^yuss, 



20 FULL UP AND FED UP 

I know them piece-work fellies ! They gets their fifty bob 
a dye all right by a-doin' of the work of two or three good 
men — a puttin' bread and jam inter their bellies and sayin' 
'Chuck you, Jack/ to the rest of us. But that's like the 
rest o' the world now. Forty years ago I was a devil fer 
work meself, but I'd alius share a shillin' with any one 
and they with me. But nowadays they see a man in the 
gutter and let him bloody well lie ! . . . But I got me 
pension now — ten bob a week — and with the other ten 
bob I can pick up I gets along — ^just as I hev since I wuz 
fom-teen and started off ter sea — ^without no schoolin' after 
I was seven. " 

'^See them Lascars?^' said a red-faced, unshaven fellow 
in badly soiled coat, greasy handkerchief for necktie, spotted 
corduroy pants, and the heaviest of boots, all in very great 
contrast with the East Indian's bare feet, gray denim 
trousers and jumper, black beard and dish-rag of a turban. 
'^The law's been lettin' them things and the Chinks get 
the places on the boats that should belong to us. 'Taint 
right." 

^'Ye'll 'ave trouble findin^ work and that's the truth, '^ 
a man in charge of one of the lighters informed me. He 
was well dressed and looked intelligent. ''Of course the 
reason is that so many has listened to this 'ere propagander 
about more production ! 'More production !' the mawsters 
say. . // there wasnH a good many as didnH ^eed it, there^d 
be no job fer nobody now ^ereabouts.^^ 

Before lunching in one of the worst-looking emporiums 
of fried fish that could be conceived, I took a glass of what 
he called " ile " (ale) with my old friend. I hoped to find that 
my old Irnnber hobo was right when he testified that booze 
made you "mind the dirt and the flies less." At the table 
of the "fish and chips" place a bright-looking Jewish boy 
was good enough to insist that I share with him from a 
great loaf of bread he drew from his pocket. It helped a 



INTO STRANGE WATERS 21 

lot to put down the half-cooked fish and the greasy pota- 
toes. He added his own to the general testimony that 
American employers are better than the English and was 
evidently well pleased with his present job with one of 
them. 

^'Two days o^ work IVe ^ad this week and only one 
lawst week/' was the sad testimony of another worker who 
was not a member of the union, but looked rather pros- 
perous. 

"If youVe got a card and are well known in these parts, 
mebbe,'' was the suflSciently pointed reply of a laborer who 
was outside the gates of another dock a mile or so away 
where I asked about the chances. 

"Now (no), never 'awve Ah been to the stites,'' answered 
a thin-faced and slight-framed man of broad accent at still 
another dock as we stood opposite the policemen who were 
examining the packages of some of the passengers just in 
from Alexandria. ^'But otherwise, IVe been much around 
the wawrrld — as a firemon like yourself. But yell never 
be a-gettin' awve a boat from 'ere. Ye should try the 
Surrey or the Tilbm-y Docks.'' 

"Two mont's here since come from Alexandria — fire- 
man" a black-bearded man who said he was an Egyptian 
and certainly looked it in spite of his English clothes and 
his stoker's or fireman's sweat-rag about his neck. ^^ Mostly 
sleep on streets nights, " he added sadly. 

It may, of course, be that some of them are telling as 
large tales as I am. But when they take me for a fellow 
fireman, share their bread with me, and accept the light of 
my cigarette without (asking for it, it can be put down 
pretty certainly that their tales are not meant to secure 
the sympathy they might expect for the right kind of a 
story if we were not pals together. At any rate they 
seem to accept without reservations my tale of having made 
"a bit of money over in the States workin' in steel, y' un- 



22 FULL UP AND FED UP 

derstand, and wanted to come over for a look 'round, like; 
worked me passage with a lot of cattle" (true enough and 
twice true but twenty years and more ago), ^^was promised 
a free go on the boat back in three weeks, but meanwhile, 
ye see, I'm out of money and where the devil can I get a 
job, huh?'' 

Well, it all looks like a hard life, but there may be some 
compensations, judging by the free and easy way most of 
them seem to take it all — including, especially, their ^41e" 
in the big glasses holding a full pint. 

Whitechapel, 
Saturday, July 3, 1920. 

'Twas a breath of home to read the Times^ very friendly 
American Fourth of July supplement and its editorial this 
morning — ^very much in line with the words of a great tall 
chap encountered this afternoon over by the docks: ^^It's 
'awnd in 'awnd we should go, you Johnny Browns and we 
Johnny Bulls. I can bloody well see that it's you and not 
us as is goin' ter ^ave the biggest nivy, and we don't want 
yer comin' over 'ere ner us a 'avin' ter go over there, neither." 

^^Fer the Daily Mirror y hye?" my docker friends of yes- 
terday all called good-naturedly to me as I aimed my 
camera at them to-day. I was better dressed than yes- 
terday and they didn't recognize me. In the ^^ public house " 
money and beer flowed fast and furious, seeing that all had 
been paid off for the week of forty-fom* hours. The war- 
time restrictions seem still to keep the places closed till 
twelve, then open till two-thirty and again open from five 
till ten. All the workers so far assure me that '^Every- 
body tikes enough ter last 'im inbetweens and they's more 
beer drunk now than before." But I doubt it. So far I've 
seen less drunkenness than on my other trip here. Still 
that may be because of the complaint everybody makes of 
the prohibitive cost of spirits for the poor man. 



INTO STRANGE WATERS 23 

'^A bloody revolution therell be if ever they try to tike 
our liberty — and our beer — ^away from us as they did over 
there!" is the general testimony, apparently, in the pubs. 
Of course, they don't mean necessarily that blood would 
flow. The adjective is merely a manner of speaking, as it 
were. *'Wy, Ga blime, they's enough bloody tar in them 
laces,'^ explains one friend, when a boy calls out, ^Tenny 
apiece," ^Ho run a bleedin' rileway trine! A bloke carn't 
put on 'is bloody boots fer the bloody tar, ^e cam't." 

^' Work? Sure, there's work — ^if yuVe got a good berth," 
says an elderly person of fairly comfortable looking type, 
while his profane partner pokes fun at him for the years in 
Canada denoted by his ^^Sure!" ^^Me!" he continues, "I've 
got me job now fer Ufe — now thet I've been reinstated fer 
me pension that I lost after the last strike. — ^Aye, a foreman 
I was — once. No, not a dye of schoolin' 'ave I 'ad. I 
went to work when I was nine, when me father died. I'm 
sixty-eight. A good dozen o' childern I got, too. Me 
daughter's married — the oldest — ^and runs a big boardin' 
'ouse. But it's years since she's spoke a word to me — ^not 
since the time she found me makin' love to a woman when 
me second wife was layin' dead in the front room. 'Course 
she was mad. But blood will flow, won't it, I asks yer? 
Nature will 'ave its way, now won't it?" 

^Tilferin'? Wy, of course there's pilferin' on the docks. 
Yer see, they puts so much cargo in 'ere diuin' the war,' ' 
explained one of his friends, as we were pushed up together 
at the bar by the rush of incomers, ^Hhat they was fruit 
from Calif orny all over the plice. WuU, with all the bloody 
rats a-eatin' all the bleedin' libels (labels) off, yer 'od ter 
open 'irni up and 'ave a look an' a tyste ter tell wuz they 
pineapples er plooms." 

^^Two quid (pounds) ighte (eight) shillin' Ah've mide this 
week on them," testified a great hulk of a fellow who seemed 
to know my friends well, as we got to talking about the way 



24 FULL UP AND FED UP 

so many people seem to put money on the horses that ap- 
pear to race every day. ^^No fear awVe it's getting inter 
the bank/^ he added in answer to my question — '^not with 
five chicks ter buy shoes fer. " 

They were still treating each other to their great black 
pints when I said good-by. Later I was lucky enough to 
come upon an unusually intelligent worker with a clean 
white collar, waiting with his boy of nine for his tram. 

'^Yes, my line is stevedoring — ^not at this dock — and I'm 
not like most of these chaps here. They're casuals. That's 
bad. And working one day and no job the next makes 
them lazy, too. I'm in a union of dock, dredge, river, and 
general workers that has an agreement with stevedore 
contractors that pay us each three pounds ten a week, 
whether we work or not, and sixteen shilUngs a day when 
we do. And if there's no work at one dock they transfer 
us to another. The union always plays square and we can 
trust them to work everything out to everybody's satisfac- 
tion without OUT having to do more than pass a vote. Of 
course there's some of these here Russians running about 
talking about their line, but I don't think they're getting 
far with it. Now look at these people all waiting for their 
turn at the seats here in the bus. Could you do better than 
that in America? . . . Yes, I think we'll have it dry here 
one of these days. But I see a lot of the men coming 
over from your country on the boats — the workers, you 
know — that drink a lot of spirits — ^not beer like we do — 
when they get over here. ' ' 

It would look as though he was the type that men say 
make the back-bone of the country. He certainly demon- 
strates splendidly the dignity which comes to the proud 
possessor of the steady job. It's almost inconceivable that 
he does the same kind of work as the others I've beem 
mixing with. There will probably be more of this type 
following the legislation which the bright Jewish young 



INTO STRANGE WATERS 25 

worker told me of yesterday. That will provide for keep- 
ing boys in school till sixteen and then, within seven years, 
or as soon as the faciUties may be provided, until they're 
eighteen. That looks good, taken in connection with the 
care young children are said to be given by the health 
authorities from several weeks before they are born up till 
school age at five when they will start coming in for an 
annual health examination by the school authorities. 

Well, those docks are certainly interesting — ^with their 
international angles of both trade and the labor problem. 

Hope to get off Monday to Wales, though it looks rather 
scary whether there will be any job, with the business 
world so unhappy about the proposed ^^ Excess Profits 
Duty'' tax of sixty per cent — ^in addition to the present in- 
come tax of six shillings to the pound. Anyway, it lessens 
the tendency to homesickness to see all the papers here 
excited about the same old American items of the govern- 
ment 's ^^squandermania"; the London County Council's 
six per cent housing bonds under criticism for going into 
houses too expensive for the workers — and not being sub- 
scribed for; labor-unions getting jumped on for not being 
representative, with 4,000,000 workers in and 9,000,000 
out, etc., etc. It does look odd and far from home to 
read, at the same time, of bank clerks' unions securing 
annual increases of $15,000,000 and Peterborough Cathe- 
dral celebrating its 800th anniversary! 

Good night ! 



CHAPTER II 

BY THE SMELTERS AND STOVES OF SOUTH WALES 

Cardiff, South Wales, 
Tuesday, July 6, 1920. 

The day has refused a job, but it has given a very weary 
pair of legs, — also a full pair of ears and eyes, not to men- 
tion a mind full of the satisfaction of getting closer to the 
summer's quarry because closer to the fiery fronts of open- 
hearths, charging-machines, cinder pits, ^^ stoves/' and such- 
like old friends. 

The train was fast and the third-class compartment car 
very comfortable for the three hours' trip — quite without 
any real need, I'd say, of the support of the large glasses 
of whiskey taken by the two middle-aged ladies and their 
gentleman relative. At the station here we waited for the 
policemen to bring somebody along, and behold. King 
Manuel of Portugal, handsome and smiling, with an ex- 
tremely stylish young lady! How they happened to be 
here I'll have to wait until the morning paper to fijid out. 
The crowd evidently had no idea who they were. 

'^Aye, they're 'and charged, all right. That's why we 
'as our job," the rough and dust-covered worker I sat down 
beside in the public house answered my inquiry about the 
three blast-furnaces visible from where we sat. He was 
a member of a union, getting something over four pounds a 
week and evidently doing the hardest kind of work up on 
the cupola. He was drinking his third great pint of ale and 
stoutly refusing the urgings of his chum to 'ave another, be- 
cause of his trip to Bristol some years ago, when the 

26 



BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 27 

party went to see a ^^pantomine" — 'Hhey wuz 'av^n' a good 
time over there in them days, you see'' — got to drinking 
whiskey, forgot about the pantomime, got half-way back to 
the station — ^^and from then on I cawn't recollect a single 
thing except that I woked up in bed back 'ome — ^and don't 
Uke wiskee never since." 

On his strong suggestion I went boldly over to ask for 
the Irish-American in charge of the furnaces, and on 
my second go found it easy to get into the plant (about 
12,000 men) past the policeman. By assimiing the inde- 
pendence urged by my barroom friend, I sauntered coolly 
along past the gas producers and foimd myself standing 
again on an open-hearth floor and talking to an old first 
helper (^' first hand" here). He had been a puddler back 
in the Calumet district around Chicago, had seen Ihe ton- 
nage rate for puddling fall from fourteen shillings to six shil- 
lings six pence hapenny, left it and was now happy in his 
dignity as the boss of his furnace and earning around ten 
pounds a week. 

^'We calls these furnaces smelters or melters 'ere. No, 
they's not water-cooled doors — ye see, these furnaces are 
twenty-five years awld and more and only forty-ton size. 
That chargin'-machine there was the first laid down in 
South Wales, years and years ago, of a Wellman patent — 
(Cleveland, U. S. A !) Down farther there ye'U find a Tal- 
bot fm-nace, as good as any — ^holdin' 175 tons and over here 
ye'U see a first-class pit." 

Sure enough the pit was orderly as could be; the floor was 
a fearful mess and the fm^naces most forlorn looking. Alto- 
gether it made me glad that when I finally found the man 
in charge he was ^^full up" and could offer no job. The 
rate of two shillings one penny per hour seemed good for 
the easy shovelling the labor gang was doing on the Talbot, 
which had fallen in after a good long service. 

The boss is a shrewd-looking young Welshman who 



28 FULL UP AND FED UP 

seemed more than willing to swap information about Eng- 
lish steelmaking for the same about American. He seems 
to have the highest regard for the unions into which a 
worker must go as soon as he is promoted up out of the 
^^ general labor '^ gang. (^^We mustn't say ^common labor' 
since the war.'O ^^They keep their agreements with satis- 
faction and are quite reasonable. 

^^The twelve-hour day? Well, you wouldn't find any- 
body in the country — employer or employee — ^who would 
be willing to go back to it, not even on a temporary basis. 
No, no, -that was too long. . . . No, I can't say that we 
have fewer spills or accidents since the change, but we never 
did have 'em often here, anyway. But everybody's hap- 
pier. Of course you fellows'll come to it. But I notice that 
your costs are getting up very fast. Well, we're getting 
ready to catch up with you chaps and pass you. We've 
got some distance to go, I grant you, but we're getting 
ready to go fast — ^with that Talbot, for instance, when 
she's goin' right she certainly puts out the steel — and we're 
putting in more, with a big mixing furnace soon. Ten 
thousand tons a week, that's what we're after." 

He was much interested in my account of our tar guns 
at Stackton, natural gas, etc., and was very unhappy at 
the present low quality of coal coming from the company's 
collieries a few miles away. 

The man from America in charge of as tmnble-down a 
collection of blasts and ^^ stoves" as could be imagined, is 
also sure the eight-hour day is coming in America. The old 
way is too long, everybody is persuaded here, especially 
when the work is as hard and dirty and continuous as on 
a "floor" or around the "stoves." Everybody here has a 
maximum of forty-seven hours, with some only forty-four, 
though the laborers often get week-end work at time and a 
half which puts their earnings well beyond five pounds. 
Every third week all are required to take a double turn of 




Ha ^ 



BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 29 

sixteen hours in order to allow their shift to come each 
week at a different period of the twenty-four. 

Both these gentlemen seem to feel well pleased with the 
way the ^Hon workers'' ^'put their backs to their jobs'' 
in the shorter day. 'Tirst hands in some places where 
things are working right are getting their twenty to thirty 
poimds every week." But the day or time workers are 
making them very unhappy by their easy-going methods 
ever since the war. '^Why, they're putting up plants to- 
day covering twice the space but designed for the same out- 
put — ^just because these chaps can't be made to work ex- 
cept by a tonnage rate — ^and how can you do that with 
the ^general laborers^?" 

Over in the river were nimierous boats unloading car- 
goes of 1,700 tons or thereabouts of ore from Bilbao, Spain, 
or from South African fields. Four men (in place of a usual 
six) were doing a wondrous fine job of shovelling the heavy 
stuff into a small bucket holding about a ton. This an- 
other man lifted with a hydrauUc winch according to the 
directions of another man who lay on some tarpaulins and 
yelled mutterings to ^ ' Lower !'^ or ''Haul away!" and then 
bore it over to a Httle railway car built for twenty tons ( !) 
where still another man unloosed it — altogether an extremely 
wasteful use of man-power, so far as the eye could judge. 
Some of the ships seemed to be using ''clam-shells." A boy 
said they could not be used to "grab" up this particular 
kind of ore, and that the gang of men working through the 
twenty-four hours could unload by their shovels about 
400 tons. To my surprise, I learned that these men below 
were working only three and a half hours per day, though 
even then they were lifting the extremely heavy stuff so fast 
and sweatily that they were earning six "quid" a week. 
The boy loosing the bucket earned only two pounds, two 
shiUings. 

"Well, ye see, we're all ex-service men and we've beeij 



30 FULL UP AND FED UP 

taken on only because everybody's asked to give us jobs. 
So we work only while the other regular gangs on longer 
hours are eatin', or in between their shifts. Of those four 
down inside, all are too old to take the regular turns except 
one. A man has to be an ox to shovel that stuff for ten 
hours, and then he's an old man at thirty-five — ^with the 
help of booze. I'm twenty — after two years and ten 
months in the army. And I come home to find nothing to 
do ! That's all a ^grateful king and country' can do ! And 
down the dock there you'll find a lot o' Chinks and ^niggers' 
doin' a man's work on the boats just because they'll do 
it a little cheaper, y' understand? 

^^No, I couldn't learn a trade because my old man he 
Vent out/ you know, and we all had to dig in. Here you 
can't get a skilled job unless you got a pocket full o' papers 
— that's what the unions of your mates do for you. Years 
of work, they mean, these certificates of indenture, years of 
work at five or six shillings the week ! No, it's a rotten 
old country to go through hell for — ^and to lose two of your 
brothers for. Nobody cares for the workin' man nowadays." 

As I walked out I met a black-faced coal handler whose 
greatest complaint was of his fellow workers reported to 
be lying down on their job in South Wales mines. 

^^If these miners cawn't do the work to get out the coal, 
they should get out of the collieries and let somebody else 
in. Without us 'avin' the coal 'ere to send out, we cawn't 
get no work on the docks ter do, yer see. That's the bane 
av this work. Yer never know one day to another whether 
ye 'ave a job or not. Ye go down and 'ave a look 'round 
to see where you're goin' to 'ave a chawnce, and if a gang 
gets together the mon comes along and simply takes a half 
dozen or dozen of us as we 'appen to come. 'Twould 
seem to me the finest kind o' world thot ony mon could 
want — to get up outa bed in the mornin' and know a job 
was witin' for ye! 



BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 31 

^^I fair worry meself near sick every day to know ^ave I 
a job or no. ^Twould be wort' a good pound a week less to 
'ave somethin' steady like. . . . The out-of-work money? 
Well, it's not much — fifteen shillin' a pay (week) and ye 
must give hours to signin' the book every day, when ye 
might be tryin' to find work. An' if ye take a day's job 
and then don't find another fer the rest o' the fortnight, 
y' understand, then ye cawn't get yer thirty shillins.' Thot's 
the law — ^no money except for the whole fortnight out o' 
work. No, I don't bother about it; only the undersirables 
do — or the old uns. Sickness money? Well, that's only 
fifteen bob too; that's not much nowadays, but it's a lot 
when ye're sick and got nothin!" 

He was happy in a new job and a fairly steady one for 
the time being, as fireman for a cold-storage plant on the 
dock. As we got off the car to walk down the street, he 
apologetically stopped into an alley to untie the strings 
around his trousers just under his knees. ^'I'd forgot all 
about them, you know. They keep a man's trousers from 
getting under his feet." Very carefully he turned them 
up to keep them off the ground, a process which would have 
worn them out at the bottom much faster than if tied, or, 
after the manner of most workers, strapped, at the knee. 

When at several hotels they told me, one after another, 
they were '^full up," I wondered whether it was because of 
my three days' beard. I hardly blamed them. Later I 
have had the pleasure of sitting here in the parlor of a 
^^ temperance hotel" and hearing the proprietor tell some 
inquirer every few minutes up till now — 11.30 P. M. — the 
same thing — ^^FuU up, full up; not a free bed in the 'ouse." 
I'm in only because the bed of a regular boarder is not 
working while he's on a holiday. How many others be- 
sides himself have used it since his departure I don't know, 

but, judging from the looks of the no, it's not linen, 

that's sure ! — I could guess it was several. No, the bed is 



32 FULL UP AND FED UP 

not changed during the week — or, perhaps the fortnight. 
Judging from the appearance of the landlord, however, I'll 
gamble the beds are uninhabited, anyway — ^and that's some- 
thing. He is young, but has been a seaman for nearly 
twenty years. 

^^ After getting hit by torpedoes three times and missed 
twice, I promised the old lady I was fed up on sea-farin' 
and would settle down as soon as the war was over, d' ye 
see? So here I am. D' ye think, sir, that those two gentle- 
men and their wives were respectable people? I try to 
stand in with the police and never accept any man and wo- 
man that drives up in a taxi, never. But it's hard to know 
whether your judgment's right oftentimes. You know how 
it is, sir." 

Which reminds me that the majesty of the law gave me 
a rather curdly moment this afternoon. As I sat in the 
^^pub" a young, thin-faced fellow of nervous build sat down 
quickly beside me and whispered something very hur- 
riedly about ^Hhis book 'ere" as he shoved a small blue 
tablet and lead-pencil under me, then as hurriedly stood 
up to the bar with a manifestly nonchalant expression. I 
came to a quick understanding of it all an instant later. Two 
pohcemen entered the room! I had a quick picture of 
the embarrassment of explaining to them what I was doing 
with the aforesaid book. Instinctively I reached for my 
pocket to see if I had anything by which I could prove my 
real identity, and realized keenly the disadvantages of liv- 
ing a double life. But they passed both my nervous friend 
and all the rest of us — including a nervous American — and 
the book was soon back in its owner's pocket. It seems 
that being a '^bookie" is against the law, but they are ex- 
tremely numerous for all that — with many bets placed in 
their hands in lavatories and such places. There are doz- 
ens of publications which are read zealously by most of 
the workers for their ^^dope" on '^Silver Badge" or ^'Shin- 



BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 33 

ing Star/' Some of my educated friends there in London 
tell me it comes close to being the national vice and fiom*- 
ishes among the women as well as the men of all classes. 

I surely feel a long, long way even from those friends I 
left back there in the East End in London — and so extreme- 
ly distant from the good friends back in clean, bright, hope- 
ful America that — well, the less I think about that, the 
better for my happiness at this moment. 

And now it's up two flights to the room of the ^' attic 
simplicity '' we used to talk about in Greek architecture — 
only this is spelled with a small ^^a'' — there to ^^wrap the 
drapery of my couch about me as one who lies down to 
pleasant dreams'' — I don't think! 

Swansea, S. Wales, 
Wednesday, July 7, 1920. 

"First off" I want to apologize for the aspersions I cast 
on that room of the "attic simplicity." In the first place 
it gave me a perfectly good night's sleep in spite of its 
ball-wadded pillow and mattress. In the second place, it 
was miles higher up the hill of respectability than where I 
sit now with my tablet on my knee, writing with the aid 
of the fading dayhght at nine o'clock. 

Hotel after hotel was "full up," until I felt lucky to 
get any place at all, especially at a public house bearing 
the appetizing name of "Leg of Lamb." But with the 
painted sign the appetizing idea comes to its finish — its 
sad finish. When the barmaid assigned me to "nimiber 
ten" I blithely asked for the key and was told that it 
was "quite all right" without it. A little later I brought 
my heavy bag up the stairs to find in my supposedly pri- 
vate room foiu" of the dirtiest and smelliest mattresses and 
cots it has been my lot to see in a long time — those four and 
nothing more! I have just made a careful inspection for 
the cleanest of the four, but the prospect is not good with 



34 FULL UP AND FED UP 

even the best. The girl has just told me that already two 
others are booked up for the room, and the last applicants 
I noticed were particularly bum-like. It surely makes a 
poor prospect for the night. Still it all goes, I suppose, 
with the bed IVe chosen to lie on for the summer, so I 
can't complain. Only it does not make a pleasant pros- 
pect after a day of tramping about in my old clothes through 
the mud and rain of what looks like an extremely busy 
factory district up and down the Swansea valley. 

My companions in the hostelry — and presumably my 
roommates for the night — are interesting. On the whole, 
they represent the lowest platform of ^^disrespectability" 
IVe come close to since the down-and-out ^'stiffs'' or 
'^ regulars" of the Boston-Liverpool cattle boats of the col- 
lege vacations twenty years ago. The one I spoke to first 
there in the back or special and private room of the public 
house I took for an American. He is English in spite of 
fifteen years of running from one casual job in lumber-camps 
and elsewhere between New York and Portland, Oregon. 
At this moment I am undecided what he is. During the 
afternoon and evening he has grown constantly drunker, 
and his stories of his various accomplishments steadily 
more vivid. I guess he's a deck-hand on a trawler which 
goes out for fish, when he is not absorbing whiskies — eight 
at last accounts to-day — and beers, about ten pints so far, 
with another hour's run still to make before closing time 
at ten. A respectable and hard-working young Welshman 
who is keeping him company carefully stated that he has 
no pride in it, but: 

''To-day already I've 'ad about fifteen pints, and now 
— mind ye, I don't sye it to boast, but merely to state God's 
truth — before I go to bed at eleven, I'll have without doubt 
— and it's not boasting at all, I am, y' oonderstawnd — 
without doubt, twenty more! No, and it will not be 
a-mykin' me at all out av me 'ead at all. Ye see, I likes the 
stuff and the stuff do seem, as ye might sye, to like me." 



BY TItE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 35 

That was about five o'clock. A little while ago he was 
progressing satisfactorily with his programme — except that, 
judging from his all-inclusive friendliness to the gentlemen 
assembled and his repeated successes in kissing Sarah, the 
barmaid, I'd say he was fairly well intoxicated. It has 
been quite hard to sit and talk with the trawler man and a 
young and intelligent-looking miner while our friend has 
been boasting loudly near by, and two young boys at an- 
other table have been entreating a young friend to: ^^Come 
on. Jack, 'ave a Uttle tea and then we'll all carry on. Now 
that's a good bye." 

To which Jack, with his head on the table, murmurs in- 
coherently about the pain in his head or else gets rid of his 
overload of alcohol by vomiting on the floor — ^without the 
slightest notice from barmaids or others ! 

Altogether about the lowest party it has ever seemed 
necessary for me to sit in. 

^^No," says the trawler man, '4f you ask me I'll tell you 
that even my mother wasn't sorry to see me go 'way from 
the house — the fine house — there in London where she and 
my brothers hve. And of course they weren't. They 
can't ^get' me^ — not they. And I can't ^get' them, not 
them. Well, you see, I've got to have the stuff — I get 
drunk every day I'm on shore and there's no way out of 
it. And then my nerves are all shot and I have to take a 
dose or two of some dope to get some sleep. Not a dope 
fiend, y' understand. No, sir, not by a long shot. And 
if I could get back to the States I'd get some money — a 
hundred and fifty dollars — I got in a bank there and never 

come back to this island. Why any man Uke you 

should come over here I don't know. Over there any 
Chink will give a down-and-outer a sandwich and here 
they put him in jail." 

The strange thing is that he has none of the appearance 
of a down-and-outer, his face being as tanned and strong 
looking and his eye as straight as one could wish. 



36 FULL UP AND FED UP 

'^I fink I'll not stay long in Swansea/' says a pathetic- 
looking lad in the shabbiest of coats, a torn shirt, and be- 
draggled soft collar — in a language which I have seen 
quoted but never heard before. ^^I don't want Swansea 
(don't like it) and that's God's trufe. No, I'm never 
touch-in' of the stuff. I 'ave me ^character' right 'ere 
in me pocket — ^of gude character, sober and indoostrious ' 
it sye, 'sober and indoostrious' — and I'm not for the los- 
in' o' it, you know, no more nor anyfink. In furniture, I 
am. We was paid to-day — six quid; so I 'ave bought me a 
suit — 'ere, ye can see the waistcoat. It's second-'and, but 
i' God's trufe, brawnd-new. Free (three) pound eighteen I 
paid for it. I'll 'ave it on me in the morning, I will, if nofink 
'appens." 

''Of one hundred men ye'U meet 'ere in South Wales — 
at least among the colliers (miners)," says the white- 
collared Mr. Powell, who admits with some pride that he 
has worked his years "inside" and is now the local presi- 
dent or chairman of the miners' union in a near-by colliery, 
"Of one hundred of them 'ere ye'U find nine and ninety 
Socialists. We want an end put to private profit and we 
want more coal got out for the people. Ye see, 'tis like this 
— do ye folly me? — 'ere must be twenty yards left this 
side the boundary of a private property and then twenty 
yards the other side — that's forty good yards left below 
that the country will need — and that the country could 
'ave, d' ye see? if 'twas government done. Then if there's 
a fall in an entry, the chawnces are that the masters will 
leave it lie while they goes on into another part — ^and that 
fall and the coal behind it never gets out in this world." 

"May I interrupt you? Will you permit me 'ere to sye," 
says the colliery clerk of the thirty pints going on thirty- 
five, "that I'm a-fearin' we mye not be so 'appy with nashul'- 
zation — I can't sye it quite correct, gentlemen; it's a 'ard 
word f er a sober man and I ahm still sober ! The colliers 



BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 37 

mye not like government operation for themselves, I sye, 
but it's God's truth that the shot-fire-men — I wuz one fer 
many years, I wuz — the shot-fire-men, they ought to be 
paid by the guv'ment. Because mony times I've fired shots, 
so 'elp me, I 'ave, w'ere I took big chawnces for blowin^ 
everybody oop. Now gov'ment shot-fire-men would not 
tyke chawnces. And that's God's truth, it is, gent'men." 

'^We 'ave figures to show," says the red-haired union 
official, 'Hhat the owners — the masters — ^in this district 
make a good 18/6 per ton. We colliers get fer a ton o' 
coal two shillin'; we buy it from the company for our own 
use for six and six. The pubhc pays over two pounds! 
That's w'y we're not workin'. Too much profit.'' 

'^Yes, I know the telegraft is government operated and 
'tis not good. And 'ere's a case to prove yer p'int, sir. 
Last mont' I got a tellygram at seven o'clock that me 
brother'd sent at nine that mornin' — 'e bein' four mile 
aways from me. On account of the delaye, ye see, I 'ad to 
take a trap at twelve shillin' sixpence, bein' as all the trines 
wuz gone. The next dye the girl confesses 'twas 'er fault 
and awsks me not to sye nothin' — w'ich I promises to do if 
she pyes me twelve bob and sixpence w'ich I'd paid for 
the trap, y' oonderstawnd? — ^w'ich she did." 

A fairly canny Welshman — I submit — probably with a 
whiff of Scotch ancestry ! 

Dm-ing the day I asked a worker how about the coal 
men's holding up business at the ports: the objection of 
my black-faced docker friend of yesterday was supported 
by a morning paper's statement of increased cost of living 
131 per cent, increased wages of miners 155 per cent, with 
increased wage cost per ton of coal produced, 267 per cent. 
His answer was as immediate as it was definite: 

'^Wull, wot about all the bloody profits av the thievin' 
mawsters, hye? Them as sets in their silks and satins 
somer's down in London and never r'ises a bloody 'awnd ter 



38 FULL UP AND FED UP 

do a dye^s work! Wye should the coUiers break their 
bawcks ter pile up the pounds for thum?'' 

'^It's little enough worrk there is, aroond 'ere in the port/^ 
said a laborer waiting in the rain, ^^And, God strike me 
dead, uf it eyent nothin' but a bluudy go of the mawsters 
ter brike the unions ! 'Now's the time !' that's w'at they're 
syin', all of 'um. Strike me, but it mikes me sick ter see 
the wye all these bluudy Welshmen believe every bleedin' 
word Llide George syes to 'um. And the king! — ^wuU, I 
never lays eyes on 'im and never wants to, but from 'is 
pictures I'll sye 'e looks like nothin' but a bluudy im- 
becyle, God strike me ! I'm fair fed up on this country, I 
am." 

I took some supergreasy ^^^am and eggs" in a super- 
greasy and dirty coffee-house in the hope of further con- 
versations, but in vain. Through the rain I got out to a 
nest of big steel and tin-plate works, going on from there to 
a plant still farther up the beautiful valley to which I had 
been referred as one of the biggest makers of tin plate in 
England. I found the new '^welfare man" in charge of 
a neat-looking small building of restaurants, lavatories and 
first-aid. He apparently gives most attention to the town's 
boy scouts — all the town's families which cover the valley's 
sides are the ^^ works' families." He hopes to help me see 
his superior Friday. Whether it will be possible or wise 
for even the boss to let an unidentified stranger into the 
fold of the httle community and its suspicions of outsiders 
and their sharing of the community's limited supply of jobs, 
appears, according to the welfare man, to be a serious 
question. 

Anyway, I'll hope. Hope, that's the word to take with 
me into one of those dreadful beds — after I go down and 
see how my pals, drunk and sober, are prospering down- 
stairs. 



BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 39 

Thursday Night, 
July 8th, 
Swansea. 

The committee can certainly report progress ! 

The trawler man was far gone and claimed to be making 
barrels of money from covert sales of a drug that '^will cure 

every d disease you ever heard of, and more.'^ That 

bank-account is now reported at $350! The master of 
the thirty-five pints was singing, toasting everybody in 
sight and kissing Sarah every second time she passed him, 
though still claiming that no amount of beer affected him. 
In further evidence of what the modern psychologists 
would probably call his highly active though somewhat 
temporary and unstable ^^superiority complex" he was 
relating and re-relating how: 

"'Me brother-in-law been a bookie, y' understawnd ! Well, 
on the very day o' the rice 'e wires me the tip. So I tikes 
10 pounds — awnd I gets me me 330 ! Of course when I 
leaves the pUce, I 'ad only three of them left on me, awnd 
I was a bit unsteady like. But all me friends been 'appy 
— I'll say that for them— awnd for meself , too. 'Ere, Miss ! 
a pint o' mild aU round ! ^ Yes,' I say to meself, 'I'll take 
this tip fer once!' Me brother-in-law bein' a bookie, ye 
see, awnd mikin' a cool fifty thousand on it, too" — etc., etc., 
to the accompaniment of many a '^ Wull now !" or ^'I sye !" 
from the admiring and envious crowd of us about him. 

^'Before the war I wuz a good mon and never cared for 
this stuff," a young man assured me when the publican 
had refused to give him a bed without seeing his money. 
''But if ye've money and respect yerself, let me tell you to 
keep aways from the army, and from Uquor." 

Sarah, of the gentle face, very certainly, I regret to re- 
port, gave a pronounced "hie" with her "yes" when I 
asked about leaving my bag in the kitchen instead of tak- 
ing it up to the alleged bedroom. 



40 FULL UP AND FED UP 

Up in the ^^ dormitory'^ I joined my sleeping pals by get- 
ting into the one empty bed — not the one I had picked as 
the least shocking. After I had removed my shoes and laid 
my coat inside the covers where I could keep my hand on 
it, I tried to keep my imagination from following too far 
back into the past of the inescapable smell of bum carried 
by the dirty blanket — nor too far forward into the night. 
Strangely enough, nothing kept any of us awake except 
the ominous coughings of the old man. In the morning it 
was possible to take a wash and a shave in the public lava- 
tory where a worker advised me that ^^ Yer cawn get every 
sort of job in Birmingham. In the Tyre Works I mykes 
ten quid a week, now that I can turn out good tyres. '^ I 
helped turn up the sleeves of two one-armed near-bums 
— the lavatory's keeper was also one-armed. I noticed that 
they seemed to feel as much as any one could the inde- 
cency of their unshaved faces. Later, the worker refused 
my offer of razor with ^^ Thanks, but I wouldn't want an- 
other to use mine, so I wouldn't use yours. This country's 
too full o' disease.^' 

The view-point of the miners hereabouts is said to hit 
closely on the troubles which American boats are having 
in obtaining cargoes of coal. Their waits often run up to 
45 day of demurrage cost at, sometimes, $600 per day ! The 
waits now average 24^ days. Some coal ^^ masters" have 
told close friends of enormous war profits: '^In two weeks 
we made enough from our export coal to equal an ordinary 
year's profits." Another told of pre-war wage costs of 
11 shillings per ton, post-war 38 shillings, with post-war ex- 
port price of 105 shillings ($26). That would make the 
red-haired collier's statement of 18/6 of profit seem mild. 
Local house coal sells at 60 shillings ($12) per ton with an 
additional 50 cents for putting into the cellar. On the other 
hand, the papers give reports of, for instance, 1,200 miners 
out of 2,000 as paying income tax on 10 pounds a week. 



BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 41 

An American official from a near-by port is very thought- 
fully on his job, which involves, in turn, the whole matter 
of other people's jobs. 

^^The American sailor expects all the comfort of home 
on board ship. Several lately complained to me of having 
eggs for breakfast only twice a week. I have had to 
tell them how weVe not had eggs twice a quarter at my 
home. At fourpence each, I can't afford it — I guess it's 
because I work in your collier friend's nationalized industry ! 
All that the Chambers of Commerce and the other com- 
mercial interests have persuaded oiu* employer — Uncle 
Sam — to do, is to increase our wages by twenty-nine per 
cent since pre-war! 

^'So far almost no Americans are going to sea. Seldom 
will a crew of fifty show as many as ten born or natural- 
ized Americans. . . . No, the LaFoUette Act simply says 
that twenty-five per cent must know enough to under- 
stand ordinary Enghsh conmiands: — it says nothing about 
American citizenship. Then Article 1 lets even that go by 
saying that in foreign ports a captain can fill vacancies 
with anybody he can get of equal or better standing as 
sailors. So to-day here an American boat is paying off its 
Americans and also paying their wages, fare, and subsis- 
tence back to the original port where booked, taking on 
Chinese here in their places for a run into the Orient, — 
and saving money." 

Like practically all officials I've ever seen of the same 
type, he is hard-worked, with assistants promised but still 
lacking, with facts hard to get in what claims to be the 
metallurgical centre of the world. 

Partly because from where I stood she could not see my 
rough-looking trousers, a landlady gave me a room to-day 
at a better hotel, where the sheets are not changed over- 
often, but nevertheless infinitely better than the ^^Leg of 
Lamb.^' 



42 ^ FULL UP AND FED UP 

Have been inquiring about tin-plate works which are 
reported to be practically household affairs and to use 
waterwheels, but so far in vain. • 

Have just found that the collier on vacation is, according 
to schedule, well toward his thirty-ninth pint and drunk 
enough to be boasting that ^^The proprietor — 'e's a friend of 
mine, y' understawnd — 'e 'as promised me two drinks av 
brawndy after closin' time at ten to-night. '^ He also speaks 
with a combination of manly pride and due emotion of his 
having had seven children and lost j&ve, the two remaining 
living with his father. 

^^Not till me money roons out,'' he says when you ask 
how soon he goes back to work. 

Friday, July 9, 
Swansea. 

A fine combination of trains, buses, and a lot of walking 
between the beautifully patterned and verdant hills up 
to the plant and the welfare worker for the hoped-for job 
as '^general labor." 

^^Now that youVe asked me," the owner said, "I must 
refuse in order not to appear to be spying on my men. 
Otherwise, I'd have had no objections." The trouble is 
that as a bum I'd have had no chance with any of his offi- 
cials without his O. K. It's hard luck, but I hope not 
typical. 

The head of the committee made up of representatives 
of the six unions in the plant, whom the owner then arranged 
for me to see, was most worth while — a middle-aged ca- 
pable, well-spoken clear-eyed Welshman, properly proud of 
his having worked up in thirty years to his position in charge 
of the teeming or pouring of all the steel into the ingot 
moulds in the ^^pit" of the '^smelting shop" or open- 
hearth department (at about nine or ten pounds per week). 

'^Entirely right you are," he interjected, quick as a flash, 
when I said I believed that men's attitudes toward pol- 



BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 43 

itics and almost everything imaginable were largely the 
result of their job and its conditions. ^'We 'ave mony 
Socialists 'ere, sir, but they don't work at it, as ye might 
say. 'Tis because of the friendly relations between the 
owners 'ere and all av us men — ^with never 'ardly any- 
thing that cannot be straightened out. Now down at 
Briton's Ferry I've always said the best supporter of the 
Independent Labor Party is [a certain employer who's al- 
ways calling it names and knockin' it about. As long as 
'e does so every worker knows 'e ought to be for it, that 
unpopular 'e is. 

'^The most trouble we 'ave 'ere is from the engineers 
unions and such, that get their orders from outside of steel. 
Everthing else we can generally settle on — ^and usually 
win — ^with the masters. The tin-plate workei^s are now 
asking for a six-hour tiu-n and fifty per cent hourly increase 
— ^with tonnage rates on the cold rolls, not box rates. But 
mony workers, especially if they're Marxians, don't want 
piece rates. Here we're mostly on six-hour tiun — in the 
sheet mill — but we can't find enough men to run full. In 
the smelting shop where the job is irregular we've been on 
eight horn's so long I can 'ardly remember the long turns. 
In betweens, the boys will play cards — and I'm wanting a 
room near by where they can do it and be 'andy when 
wanted — with mebbe meals served there, seein' that al- 
most nobody comes 'ere to the canteen (restamrant). Just 
as nobody ever comes to the first-aid room 'ere. 

'' Safety work we don't 'ave, and what they call ^wel- 
fare' is only just starting in the country. We've all been 
too busy talkin' wages, wages. But now we're seeing that 
more wages is impossible unless the masters will do away 
with some of their obsolete works. . . . Yes, two drink- 
in' fountains we 'ad, a long time ago, and the boys stole 
'em, so we never 'ad 'em since. . . . Yes, wages and 
hours we've been getting. Better conditions must come 



44 FULL UP AND FED UP 

next — aright ^ere we 'ave some of the most democratic em- 
ployers in all England, I will say, but a very, very old shop 
and equipment.'^ 

The metallurgist says any outsider in the village at- 
tracts stares and other attentions for months — most un- 
pleasantly — also that an Englishman is hardly less for- 
eign than an American. Outside the technical men like 
himself who have to be taken where found, the better 
jobs here in Wales are supposed to be pretty jealously 
taken by Welslmaen, with the lowest jobs of '^general labor '^ 
left to the Irish and the English ! He finds the ease with 
which any and all of the workers can get to the owners 
over the department heads trying; with the head melter 
likely to refuse point-blank to make steel any other way 
than what ^^is the wye we been doin' it for ten year. '' He 
says the union representatives make a welfare man rather 
needless in the matter of wage rates and industrial rela- 
tions generally, so that he mainly looks out for the youths 
at a very considerable salary. A very clean-cut, high- 
minded chap the metallurgist seems, with rather a sur- 
prisingly friendly disposition toward government service 
because of the much greater security of the civil-service 
job than one with private employers. Which reminds me 
that the best educated of university young men in London 
spoke of the very stiff exams given by the government for 
assigning the highest winners to London ^^ berths,'' the next 
best to the provinces hke India, Egypt, etc. . . . ^^They 
pay as much as 350 to 400 pounds ($l,750-$2,000) with 
small increases each year — ^which is very good, you know.'' 

All of which appears to mean that the job constitutes 
over here a form of property which is immensely more im- 
portant than at home — so much so that once obtained it 
is little likely to be given up as blithely as with us, and 
considerably more likely to be passed down to the children 
like a piece of land. Apparently, too. the unions have 



BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 45 

pretty much succeeded in exercising at least as much con- 
trol as ^Hhe masters" over the job so as to give the indi- 
vidual holder of it the utmost assurance of security which 
market conditions will permit. The foreman's right to 
discharge without the approval of the union doesn't seem 
to exist at all, at all. 

''At Port Talbot, ye'U find a brand-new smelting shop. 
I'd try it if I was you," advised a young English worker 
who was complaining of the old-f ashionedness of the works 
with its tiunble-down equipment, its little, numbered tin 
cups in which it was handing out the weekly pay of about 
$40,000, and its general air of being a small-town, family 
party for sitting tight on the best jobs against all outsiders 
from such foreign ports as America, England, etc! 

Swansea, 
Sunday, July 11. 

It's a sordid picture yesterday gave of this district's work- 
ing and conrnaunity life. It will be worth a lot of dis- 
comfort to see if the two parts of that picture are the blood 
relatives of cause and effect, and if so, how. 

After an hour of the train's waiting, changing, and mov- 
ing I ^'got down" at Llanelly — (pronoimced by the Welsh 
somewhat as though spelled ^^ Klanecklay " — the ^^Kl" 
comes from putting the tongue to the roof of your mouth 
and going like a gander) — famous as another centre of the 
tin-plate industry. While getting an extra half-sole on 
my shoes, the cobbler and a caller did the honors: 

'^Me fawther worked at B in Indiana, for some 

years right after the McKinley tariff began to bring the 
sheet and tin-plate mills here to a standstill, and to take 
the workers away from here to America by the thousands. 
He brought us back with him when I was twelve. He's 
a roller boss now and wants to stick, though me mother'd 
start back to-morrow, and so would I. It's all class here. 



46 FULL UP AND FED UP 

A boy that's a clerk won't see you when you're on the 
street, though he will when you're on the job — ^and no 
common worker ever breaks into college here— though I 
am goin' to night school this winter. 

'^If a man don't drink in the pubs there's nothin' to do 
at all — except the movies. We're teetotallers now. Lots 
o' the boys come back from the army drinkin' more than 
ever before — ^regular wasters they are now, a disgrace to 
their old friends." 

^^Awnd uf they don't dr-r-ink," put in the cobbler as he 
ate the bread and fried fish his wife had brought him, 
'Hhen they dr-r-ess. I'm not fer mykin' more money 
thon to get me lodgins and meals, awnd I don't like to see 
such spendin's and carrjdn's on as some of the army byes — 
Aye, I notice that if they go wye to America, they stawnd 
up better with their chist out — fifty per cent better than 
before. I fancy 'tis because they 'awve the chawnce ter 
be more monly and independent thon 'ere." 

^'Well, you've better education, there," added the boy 
again, ^^and education is what the working man needs. 
Still, what's the use of it where I am if never can a worker 
get into the offices and responsibility? My brother stayed 
in school for years longer than I and he comes up this 
week for his captaincy exam. If only some 'un had made 
me stay in school ! But I wanted to earn money. I wanted 
to be a man ! 

^^Say, how'd you like to see the place where I work?" 

It was almost too good to be true — thus to have a guide 
right into the mills. He said it was the biggest of its kind 
in the town, but it had only a few fairly small single mills 
for small sheets which could be put from the back door 
into sailing boats direct for Liverpool. It was surprising 
to see all the ^^ opening," or separating of the rolled-together 
sheets done by girls equipped with leather hand holds 
with pieces of lead where they separated the corners. 



BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 47 

They worked fast and seemed to find slight use for knives. 
Almost none of the rollers, including the ^' heaver-over" 
or ^^behinder/' as they call the catcher who returns the 
sheets to the roller or '^ rougher/^ and the finishers or 
^^ dockers/' seemed to use any gloves — ^and to date IVe 
seen no canvas gloves anywhere. 

^^They won't beheve me when I tell about their chang- 
ing rolls in a half-hour or so in America. Here it takes ten 
or twelve hours — the Gantry crane doesn't seem equipped 
for it. The union heads of the steel workers, the en- 
gineers, steam and electricity men, and two or three others 
work everything out with the manager — ^he's a Vashout' 
that everybody hates. If two men fight they lose their 
job. That sometimes happens because the rule about 
bringin' in beer is practically not enforced since the war, 
so anybody can get it. But outside o' that, / don't know 
anybody thaVs ever been fired around ^ere since I came. A 
man gets his job and sticks to it, generally. Every roller 
boss manages his men, too, with almost nothing for the 
master to say, though the roller don't pay 'em here as in 
some places. If we have any complaints we go to our 
roller boss and he goes to the union head, who goes to the 
chairman of their committee and if it ain't yet straightened 
out, he goes to the manager." 

No drinking-f oimtains nor any signs of sanitary or safety 
matters were evident. The crane was very busy, but en- 
gine, equipment, and building were all in poor condition. 
The '' washout" came up to us but gave no sign. There 
was no gate policeman. So we walked calmly into another 
plant where small rolls were handUng very small sheets 
with a great crowd of girls about fifteen and sixteen years 
old — earning about thirty or forty shillings — separating 
them, sorting and packing quite vigorously. Here they had 
an ancient engine of the old upright or vertical vintage. 

^'When they want to oil it, they have to stop it — and 



48 FULL UP AND FED UP 

they do about three times a turn/^ my guide said. One of 
the workers said he had worked some years in Youngs- 
town. It certainly seemed an old-time plant, with the 
necessity of considerable ^^engineering revision'^ before 
more wages or more comfort and efficiency would be easy 
for the employers on anything but a '^seller's market'' 
ready to pay high for its goods. • 

Altogether the town, with a large part of its workers 
going black-faced through the dirty streets or into its dingy 
shops for the high-priced but second-rate foods displayed, 
gave, I must say, a bad impression. It seemed unbeliev- 
able that it could claim over 30,000 souls. I was glad to 
get away, though sorry to part from my attractive young 
worker and the older and more serious cobbler — the latter 
was properly proud of his having sold '^ almost tons av 
roobber 'eels — awnd AhVe fifty pounds' worth a-comin' in 
now." 

Both confirmed the stories that the Welsh look down 
upon the English. For one thing ^^ Wales was Wales be- 
fore England was England — ^when WilKam the Conqueror 
subdued the English, he merely drove the Welsh back into 
these mountains and let them alone — he couldn't subdue 
us." Both are little hopeful of getting out of their group, 
but seem to feel slight bitterness and think little SociaUsm 
about it. 

Back in town here, was glad to find many magazines and 
quite a few readers in the public library. After supper the 
streets were jammed. Before dark I took courage to go 
down what is called the Strand, where murders are said to 
be frequent. I saw more male and female wrecks of human- 
ity, drunk and sober, with dirty children about them, than 
ever in my life. One middle-aged woman was singing 
when she wasn't swearing, while another old hag scarcely 
three feet high had to bend her neck wofully from a fear- 
ful crook in her back in order to let the passer-by see her 






BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 49 

horrid puffy cheeks and her chin covered by an inch-long 
yellow beard ! Policemen have orders never to come down 
here except in twos. 

Up on the main streets every so often — and with increas- 
ing frequency as the evening grew — the crowd would 
gather to see a drunken brawl or to let the police trundle 
away on a two-wheeled stretcher some dead-drunk worker. 
It gave me a shock to see one drunken woman step out of 
a pub to browbeat her sober husband for money. When 
she got it she re-entered the saloon to get still drunker, 
while her husband walked on shamefacedly. At about 
eleven nearly every young man that passed me at the 
upper end of the main street was reeling, if he wasn't sing- 
ing drunkenly or explaining: ^^Ah^m a-goin' ^ome to me 
mother (hie) — me lovin' mother — it's ^er that's waitin' fer 
me noo (hie)." 

^'Oi'm a-lovin' o' that mon in there ! It's 'e thot gov me 
this !" screamed a drunken hag, pointing in to the pub and 
disclosing a bottle of whiskey under her indescribably 
filthy coat. 

About the only sober people dm*ing the later hours after 
pub-closing at ten seemed to be the numerous young girls 
talking to the boys and ^'ta-ta"-ing their yoimg and mostly 
unsteady friends good night. Singing and reeling along 
would come whole platoons of boys and young men help- 
ing to hold each other up. The streets were filled with the 
sound of singing of either the groups on the sidewalk or in 
the chars-a-bancs. (These are huge trucks fitted with rows 
of seats for as many as thirty or fifty persons. At low 
rates they run hoHday trips in every direction, evidently 
with great success, in spite of the serious accidents caused 
often by the drivers taking too great advantage of the fre- 
quent stops at the roadside pubs.) But for all the music, 
the impression from the combined reports of ear and eye is 
not one of a happy people. 



50 FULL UP AND FED UP 

^^In the army, sure we got nun in winter three times a 
day/' my trawler man explained earlier in the evening, 
^^with a special dose before every action. The Germans 
were always drunk when they came over — and IVe seen 
hundreds of their beer bottles on their battle-fields. Of 
coiu'se, the English navy has booze, too." 

I induced him and a drunken friend, who also blames the 
army for his taste for drink and also for making his home 
town too dull, to take a walk so as to get away from the 
constant: ^^Fill 'em up again, miss! — two pints o' mild 
and a half pint o' bitters !" It was worth while to see the 
trawler man straighten up with the pride of his job as he 
told us the fine points of one of his beloved trawlers as we 
stood on the dock above it. 

^'Here's where I know what I'm talkin' about, you 
betcher life ! To hell with the British navy ! 'Twas these 
trawlers won the war ! They kept cleanin' up the sea for 
the bigger boats. Now, you see that ? . Well, that's how 
you pull the fish in and sort 'em. And there — the fish in 
that box everybody turns in and skins and then sells 'em 
to the low-down fried-fish joints — ^where I eat, too d — often, 
I'll say. And the money goes to the crew. And there, ye 
see that — " etc., etc. 

^'But there we was with them low-down foreigners," says 
oiu" dnmken partner as they head toward another pub, 
^^and stili they could talk more languages than we bloody 
EngUsh ! Somethin's wrong, I tell you, with our education, 
or we wouldn't have to go to war to find how much we 
fellows here don't know." 

^^Well, I'm for the army," says the trawler man, ''all 
except the bloody fightin' ! But it's more education we all 
want — ^not more religion — more education, and better." 

Yes, there's something good in such men. The sur- 
prising thing is how that something good seems to keep 
moving about in them more boldly when they're drunk 



BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 51 

than when they're sober! '^Oh, I sye, if only me mother, 
me poor mother, could see me now!'' our third man kept 
saying oftener and oftener the drunker he grew. 

But what I want to know is how far the job of earning a 
living in a factory town such as Llanelly or Swansea, and 
how far the job of fighting for their country in the army or 
navy, is responsible for these men and for such an un- 
pleasant picture of degraded humanity as last night gave of 
Swansea, the cradle of the world's tin-plate industry. 

Swansea, 

Monday, July 12, 1920. 

Few days could crowd in more of information and opin- 
ion from a wide variety of standpoints than to-day. Such 
vibrating between the workers and the experts or ^Hhe 
knowers" gives a better understanding of the whole indus- 
trial problem than being just a worker. It is, of com-se, 
much more necessary where, as here, the view-points of 
both groups are equally unknown to a stranger. 

One rather prominent citizen who has lived in America 
agreed that while many residents feel that drunkenness 
has considerably lessened, there is nevertheless an amount 
of it that is sickening to a newcomer. His daughter had 
to come to Swansea to see her first drunken man. The 
local chief constable here spent most of his evenings at the 
same hotel and usually walked out at closing time on very 
unsteady legs ! The number is considerable, however, and 
increasing, he said, of teetotallers — they're called "tee- 
tees." 

"What your working friends say about unsatisfactory 
education here is certainly true, I believe. The school books 
my children bring home are, I'm sure, away below, in 
printing, in contents, in method, the worst I had as a child, 
and far below what your children are doubtless enjoying 
now. Everybody tells me I must not think of sending them 



52 FULL UP AND FED UP 

to the ^ board' or city school here, but to a boarding-school 
— it's called the public school, though it's very expensive 
and private — at the age of eleven. By George, I'll teach 
them myself before I'll let them go through that critical 
period of adolescence outside of our family circle. I don^t 
care if that is the method among the best families here !'' 

Later I saw figures which told the tale of the trouble 
caused this district by the McKinley tariff. The thousands 
of hundredweights of tin plate shipped to America tumbled 
suddenly from five and six to one and two, commencing in 
1896, the slump being made up gradually by increased 
shipments to Japan and other countries. 

^^The best thing that ever happened to us!" was the 
conament of an official of a manufacturer's group a few 
minutes later. ^^That McKinley tariff made us go out 
and sell our sheets to so world-wide a market that now 
nothing less than a world-wide disturbance could hurt 
more than a fraction of our present total trade. We used 
to be too dependent on one market — the American." 

His ruddy face and forceful language show that he has 
been through the game of steel-making pretty much from 
the bottom — with some of the shortcomings as well as the 
strength of that experience, as when he added that ^^Well, 
no, we'll never be dry here because, you see, the workers 
near the furnaces simply can't get through their eight-hour 
turns, and shouldn't be expected to, without the extra 
stimulus and strength that comes from a couple of pints 
of beer." 

That idea of alcohol as a food used to prevail at home; 
it appears to be very general here. 

'^The continuation schools have been authorized by Par- 
liament, but every district has the liberty of voting the 
^appointed day' which puts them into local operation. 
My group is to help the school authorities work out the 
local time and method by which the pupils are to get their 



BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 53 

280 and 320 hours a year of schooling along with their 
work. It will probably take a long time before the addi- 
tional space can be provided. Meanwhile, every employer 
having a certain number of boys of thirteen, or mostly 
fourteen, has to have a welfare man to provide them with 
sports, gyms, etc. No, we're not much in favor of classes 
in the works for anybody. You see, we must keep 'em all- 
round men — and no, there isn't a great deal of chance for 
the workers to get into the management. 

'^No, I don't think the Socialism of the worker chaps is 
very deep, but the big pound-a-day wages of the munitions 
workers and the large profits of the employers durin' the 
war has got 'em on edge and nobody is workin' hard now. 
'W'y should we stand up 'ere and sweat our guts out be- 
fore this bloody fiu'nace for the mawster ter myke 'is pile !' 
That's the way they put it. And the miners that used to 
work twelve hours a day and hved like rats in a drain — 
well, they're trying to even up now by lying down on the 
job. Even at that, the majority is not for putting the mines 
over to the government, even though the leaders are. . . . 
But many of these things you'll be finding better in Eng- 
land, because most of our mines and steel plants here are 
pretty old-fashioned and backward." 

^' Never, never did we work all the twelve hours," a group 
of laborers assured me most strenuously a couple of hours 
later near the ^^ jinnies" or regenerators — our '^checker- 
chambers" — ^in a 2,000-man steel and tin-plate plant back 
in Llanelly where I walked boldly into the plant. ''Of 
course we 'ad the twelve-hour shift — from six till six. But, 
of course, we 'ad a 'arf-hour awf fer breakfast and then an 
hour and a 'arf fer dinner — that mykes 103^ hours work. 
. . . But that's a long time ago." 

Their disgust at the thought of twelve full hours of work 
daily was wonderful to behold — although they did seem to 
think extra hours after Saturday noon or on Sunday with 



54 FULL UP AND FED UP 

double pay were one of the advantages of their job as com- 
pared with that of the fourth hand or helper on the furnaces. 
That position is supposed to represent a promotion, but 
its regular hours with little chance at extra pay, they say, 
make some of them hesitate to accept it. This gang comes 
on duty at seven, takes a half-hour for breakfast about 8.30 
and an hour for dinner at one and quits at 5.30 so as to 
get in forty-seven horn's with a Saturday ^^^arf ^oliday.'^ 
With a fair amount of extra hours they manage to get their 
six or, with better luck, seven pounds per week. 

'^In this coontry the members do run our unions, they 
do,'' one of the older men explains. ^'We elect our rep- 
resentatives of every 'local' to sit with the officers whilst 
they bargain with the owners, and these can veto the action 
of the officers when they know we won't stawnd fer some- 
thin'. . • . Aye, mon, uf a mon won't join the union 
after 'is fust pay, we chucks 'im oot and awf the job quick- 
like. An no mon'll tike the plice of a striker in another 
department. We do awU stawnd together, we do, and we 
'as no 'black-legs' (scabs) amongst oos!" 

They were sure enough a happy-go-lucky lot. They 
seemed to think they could go much farther before they 
would discourage the industrial goose from laying her 
golden eggs — ^and before they would be overpaid for work 
in the hot ''checkers." There "soomtimes oor clothes 
do catch on fir're — Oh, aye! Awnd sometimes in the 
soakin' pits we 'as ter line up, joomp in, give six strokes 
with the sledge and joomp 'oot, quick-like, w'ilst another 
joomps in ter do the sime!'^ 

Some of those I saw working about the hot ingots with 
the end of their sweat towels in their mouths were as hot 
as any men I've ever seen. 

In the hot-mills where the sheet bar is rolled into the 
sheets, all seemed unhappy at the thought that laborers 
with the help of extra time could make more than they — 



BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES i55 

also very hopeful that the conference would get their de- 
mand for a six-hour turn, three additional helpers paid 
by the company and fifty per cent increase per hour! 

^' We used to slave ^ere on this job/' said an expert ^'dou- 
bler" who, besides doubling the hot sheets together, also 
kept the fires and charged the fiu-nace, ^^but now we're 
going to take it easy — and get more money. See?'^ 

The troop of small boys and girls of thirteen, fourteen, 
and fifteen years, who put the small sheets through the 
cold rolls — called ^^ greasers" and certainly looking the part 
— were as frisky and mischievous as could be imagined, 
but made a depressing sight none the less. 

It is amazing to think of spending from noon till after 
eight o'clock thus talking with the workers without a word 
from the authorities. But from all reports these would, 
according to the current plant etiquette here, only put a 
question about me to a foreman. This foreman would 
himself perhaps be a member of a union and would think 
I was a friend of one of his pals and so probably tell the 
authority to mind his own business. Meanwhile I stood 
ready to ask for the gaffer, or foreman, and then for a job, 
though as long as I could get so close to the workers with- 
out it, it did not seem necessary to try too hard. In Amer- 
ica the job was indispensable to the desired closeness to the 
workers. 

''Oh, we've got the owners so scared here they don't 
trouble us, and it's just our good consciences thot mykes us 
work at all, at all," said one. It looks as though he spoke 
the truth. It's a queer situation. The most hopeful thing 
about it is that the boys seem to take it all as rather a 
good joke. And now the evening paper adds its word: 

''Not fit for pigs to live in — Llanelly District houses. 
The local doctor prescribes tents in preference to putting 
eight persons in two small rooms as he has found them in 
certain shacks long ago ordered destroyed. In the absence 



56 FULL UP AND FED UP 

of the tents he has asked places for the residents in the 
workhouse/' 

^^ Women police wanted for Llanelly . . . Lady R 

and the local committee report that our streets are no 
longer fit for respectable women and girls to walk about/' 
etc., etc. 

It's worth calling a day f 

Swansea, 
Tuesday, July 13. 

All day I've been asking for work in this mill and that, 
getting the usual ^^FuU up!" and then forgetting about it 
a moment later when the various workers have, as usual, 
started talking about their relatives in America and then, 
as usual, about their own jobs here. 

'^We' awve to be ter get 'em, yer see," chorussed three 
bright lads in a ^ug plant more like a well-run American 
establishment than any yet seen, though many of its colos- 
sal rolls and cranes are German made. The boys were de- 
lighted to stop their work of cleaning out the ^'jinnies" 
when I asked them why, with all their advantages of se- 
curity from the foreman's firing, their short hom:s and high 
wages, health and unemployment insurance, etc., they 
still cared to call themselves Sinn Feiners and Bolshevists. 
''We ^awve ter be ter get 'em!" They could certainly roll 
off the regulation phrases about the '^capitalist class," the 
"capitalist-kept press," etc., etc., and were extremely proud 
that they and their leaders had, by their strong-arm mea- 
sures got ''more wages and more power than the steel work- 
ers in any other part of the islands, bar none." "Llide 
George" is a "twister" who doesn't keep his promises, 
though still popular with the ^^ chapel folk" (chin^ch peo- 
ple) who rule Wales. J. H. Thomas is no longer extreme 
enough to suit his railway union's constituency. The real 
power they respect most is the Triple Alliance of Miners, 
Railway, and Transport Workers. The King is " 'armless 



BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 57 

enough, but look at the money 'e spends on all the princes 
and the princesses! Wot good does 'e do, hye?'' 

^'We must stop all chawnce fer private profit and let the 
people ^ave the profit. Look w'at we'll sive by cuttin' out 
all the middlemen, with the government runnin' all the 
country's business, in a sense o' speakin'.'^ 

But another worker, ambling up, asked if they were sure 
there'd be a profit to divide when the government took it 
over. Altogether he showed that they themselves were 
not so sure of their own arguments as they let on to be. 
They all seemed, also, ready to admit that the present 
situation of the industrial owner or manager is, at least in 
South Wales, well-nigh impossible. 

'^Yes, our young boss comes along about once a day to 
see how the job is comin\ But if 'e comes oftener, we makes 
it uncomfortable fer 'im. If there's a bit too much bossin^ 
we ^down tools' on 'im. . . . This eyen't so bad; we gets 
195 per cent war bonus on our pre-war sixpence ha'penny 
the hour — that's about one and ninepence, and with all the 
^blows' (rests) we tykes w'en no boss is around, we don't 
work so much as 'arf om: eight hours." 

^^ That's it, education!" all chorussed again when I hap- 
pened to mention it as giving the worker a chance for ris- 
ing. Besides the night schools the Independent Labor 
Party furnishes classes to workers in various subjects in 
local groups and the Ruskin Labor College also offers 
classes for the more ambitious, with still others maintained 
by the Workers' Educational Alliance. But whether these 
are mainly for propaganda rather than education, or 
whether the class lines are too set to be vaulted even by 
the educated, in any event they apparently feel strongly 
that these facilities offer very little chance of carrying a 
man up into the group which they believe has in its control 
the industry, the govermnent, and everything else worth 
owning. 



58 FULL UP AND FED UP 

Up on the open-hearth floor or ^^ smelting stage '^ the 
hands or helpers laughed when I spoke of the young rad- 
icals I had talked with in the checkers below. Still they, 
too, agreed that the ^^ sample passer/' or head melter, as 
we call him, in charge of the stage, had to go easy with his 
orders or they ^^ downed tools'' on him at once. But they 
were intent on their job and could evidently be pretty well 
trusted to get out their tonnage for their pay — ^much the 
same as the gas men handling the gas producers across the 
way. 

It is impossible to overstate their disgust at hearing of 
the men in America who still work the ten and fourteen 
hour turns on the furnaces. None here in this part of the 
country seem ever to have done it. 

The price of clothes — ^about twice in America what it is 
here, of board and room almost ditto, the comparative 
chances to^ become an oflBcial, the hours, the kind of edu- 
cation — these seem to be the things of chief concern. The 
international range of their interests is most surprising — 
the result of the same kind of letters as the one shown by 
the red-headed Irishman back there in the restaurant in 
Woolwich. All seem to have brothers or cousins writing 
back — or visiting back — from America, Canada, Aus- 
tralia, New Zealand, Tasmania, South Africa, etc., etc. 
(India, I judge, gets people more from the educated and 
official group.) The influence of these facts about clothes, 
jobs, laundry, as thus given, appears to me hard to over- 
estimate largely because of the unbounded confidence 
placed in their source. This is sufficient to cause easy dis- 
counting of most of the published or other more general 
testimony to the contrary. This is especially the case in a 
country where the situation favors blaming the ^^capital- 
ist press" for any unwelcome news or opinion of whatever 
sort. Thus our personal relations and the confidence we 
have in those around us come to play a vital part as a sort 



ml 



BY THE SMELTERS OF SOUTH WALES 59 

of sieve or screen to determine what particular set of facts, 
opinions, and experiences out of all those around us really 
get through to us and so determine our whole attitude to- 
ward everything else imaginable. 

''Oh, aye! I^m sorry I didn't go with th' intention av 
remainin^ in America,'' said one big helper. ''Me brothers 
do be proprietors at a big worrks there noo.'^ 

"To Africa I'm goin' next winter," said a young man 
who had been an apprentice in electricity for four years 
and was now helping to get into shape the convejdng ma- 
chinery for the two new huge blast-furnaces. He thought 
the manager had a pretty hard time trying to get on with 
the fourteen unions engaged in getting the place ready. 
Fourteen imions in South Wales ! I pity the poor "super" ! 

Yes, whether we recognize it or not, the labor problem 
is growing more and more international. The queer thing 
is that with all these international friends and relatives 
and their market quotations on the going rate of muscle 
and sweat and skill, so many of the workers have been on 
the same job here for decades and decades and speak a 
language so hard to imderstand. When I asked one helper 
to-day what an old smelter was trying to tell me, saying I 
couldn't imderstand him, the answer was disconcerting: 

"Well, 'e do sye as 'ow 'e doon't oonderstand yeJ^ 

A few minutes ago I was glad to help put the trawler 
man — his name is Bolton— on board his trawler, ready to 
set off for a two weeks' trip to-morrow. He is fairly sober, 
though he says he's eaten nothing in five days and owes the 
proprietor of the pub five "quid" for the beer and whiskey 
he's been drinking in place of food. 

"And I'll pay him, too, when I get back if I have to sell 
my shirt. Lots o' these Welshmen won't. I've not got 
many principles, but I've got that one at least. 

"Well, I've had a bad education," he said when I tried 
to solve the mystery of his remarkable fund of information, 



60 FULL UP AND FED UP 

his air of culture, and his drunkenness. ^^ As a youngster I 
was taught to be a yes-sir, no-sir kid — ^with no mind of my 
own. Then I went off to a ^pubUc^ school. After that I 
went, according to proper etiquette, into 'chambers.' 
There I was suddenly my own boss with my own key and 
everything, and started to live fast and raise cain. . . . 
Now I can't stick at anything — I get fed up, d' ye see? I 
got to try something else — I get fed up too quick, that's 
the trouble. Now, my brothers, they're good boys and 
they stay in the office till 4.30 every day of their lives. 
I'd stay the first day and then I'd leave at four and 
the next day at 3.30, see? . . . Go to the movies? No, 
ye see, unless I got more beer in me than I have now they 
bore me. If I'm sober I can't cry or get anything out 
of them, so what's the use of going? No, I'm no good and 
I know it. Well, here we are — good-by and good luck to 
you! And to-morrow when they'll give me not a single 
drop of whiskey or even beer, I'll go through the torments of 
the damned ! Ta-ta." 

I'd certainly like to see him again. He's a wreck worth 
salvaging. 



CHAPTER III 

"BACK TO THE MINES'' AND THE "BOLSHIES'M 

ARhondda Valley Coal Town, 
S. Wales, 
July ISth. 

For the last few hours IVe been feeling myself some 
miles farther beyond ^Hhe jumping-off place" than ever in 
my life before — even farther than one homesick day when 
we got aboard the dirty Uttle Chilean steamer and with om* 
supply of chicken and beef crowing and bellowing forlorn- 
ly, headed down from Panama to Callao and Lima, Peru. 

A job here was certainly far enough away from all prob- 
abiUties yesterday when I left Swansea. Following a chance 
suggestion it looked worth while to come up from Cardiff 
and visit a school of mines in order to ask some questions 
about the district's chief industry, coal. Within a half- 
hour it was arranged that one of the professors there would 
find me a job in a big mine whose officials are friends of his. 
Before sunset one of these told his superintendent that I 
was a ^^ friend of a friend" of his who needed a job but was 
also interested in studying a typical Welsh mine before re- 
turning to America for further study. 

So I'm all set for appearing at the pit-head to-morrow 
morning at 6.30. Also as lonesome and far-away-some as 
could be conceived, surrounded — almost overwhelmed — 
by these great towering mountains, these foreign-speaking 
Welsh, and these forlornly bleating sheep that nose for 
morsels of food in the ash cans and garbage boxes of the 
little coal town's main street which moimts rapidly up to the 
head of the valley and the ^^ tip " or tipple of the big colliery. 

61 



62 FULL UP AND FED UP 

It must be this strangeness of sights and sounds which 
gives this far-away feehng, for strangely enough the other 
^^feel'^ which exists right along with it is the amazing 
friendUness of the people here. I can't imagine anything 
to exceed the hearty neighborUness and hospitality of the 
master mechanic and of the wife he brought back after his 
several years in America, to the total stranger introduced 
to them by the superintendent — ^he had told me it would be 
much harder to find me lodgings than work. 

The mechanic was plainly sorry that the wife was too 
hard worked to be wilUng to take on a new family member 
for the length of my stay, but he was quite too much the 
man of character to insist. America had treated him well 
— ^with his best job in the Pullman works just before the 
World's Fair — " 'ard work it been, sir — 'arder than men 
work over 'ere, a lot — ^but with good pay awnd good 
chawnces." To recover from an attack of fever he had 
come back to the home valley and town to find his father 
anxious to turn over to him his job as head blacksmith of 
the mine — ^and so had stayed ever since. Evidently the 
mother had fallen into the hard-working ways which ap- 
pear to be the lot of all the women of the town. The boss, 
as she called him, was glad when she announced that it 
would be quite possible to find me a place beneath the roof 
of their tidy company house for the night at least. 

^^Aye, he shall sleep with the boss!" she exclaimed with 
great definiteness and satisfaction when she had thought it 
all through. ^^Oh, aye, he shall sleep with the boss — ^and I 
shall sleep with Sallie — that's my oldest daughter.'' 

^'Aye, now that will be fine!" assented the husband. 

'^Ye can take a swill now, and then we'll have a sip o' 
tea before we go out to look up a place for ye. 'Tis sorry I 
am that we cawn't 'ave ye 'ere regular. But ye see she 
be'n't as strong as she were," he added to me as the wife 
went up to make all ready. 



^'BACK TO THE MINES!'' 63 

I judged finally what the ^^ swill" referred to in the way 
of ablutions in the tin basin and managed to take clean hands 
as well as hungry lips to the table for the bread and butter 
and jam and tea. These seemed to have changed only in 
price from the days of twenty years ago. 

Certainly no old friend could have given me a better 
recommendation than he when we started down the street 
into the bottom of the valley. But it was slow work in 
the crowded town, imtil he finally turned the job over to 
one of his assistants. I understand ^Hhe boss'' has under 
him sixty men in the blacksmith shop and the other places 
for keeping up the mine equipment. On all sides the men 
and women of the town spoke to him with the greatest re- 
spect and good-will though with none too much familiarity. 

^'Tidy people they are. Ye'U fawncy that place!" they 
both exclaimed this morning when word came that a place 
had been found with the ^^night-overman" of a near-by 
pit. The night with them and the good breakfast in the 
kitchen certainly proved the simpHcity and cleanUness of 
their own housekeeping and made me sorry not to be stay- 
ing longer. 

'^ 'Twill insult us if ye say another word in regards to 
thot !" they chorussed when I wanted to pay something for 
their soUd hospitality. ^^We do too much fawncy sharing 
with any one from America, we do, to take money from 
'em. And ye must roon up often to see us, too." 

Already I have found a great many of the townspeople 
have relatives or close friends in America and seem to know 
the country's geography surprisingly well. I only hope 
they are properly informed when they take such care to 
pass onto me the tale of the smrpassing success which has 
attended the careers of these overseas members of the fam- 
ily. All are interested in my having had a grandfather who 
emigrated to the States from the very next coimty to this 
one. All that being true, it is amazing to notice the extent 



64 FULL UP AND FED UP 

to which ordinary conversation is carried on in Welsh — 
among the children as well as the grown-ups. It is easy to 
see, too, from the glances and the introductions^ that visit- 
ing strangers are rare indeed in the town and that any one 
who is not able to talk the local language is looked upon as 
a foreigner whether from America, England, or elsewhere. 

I hope that no danger bodes even though the place is said 
to be the very hottest centre of the Bolshevistic unrest 
which affects the whole South Wales district and which in 
turn is said to be the most disturbed of all Great Britain 
outside Scotland's Clyde district. It is a deUght to find 
that this is the very town, and I am to work in the very 
pit, in which the men were reported in the London paper 
of a few days ago to have walked out against orders and, 
in their black faces and working clothes, to have marched 
one thousand strong to the funeral of a comrade. It would 
look as though a sojoxu^n in their midst ought to be inter- 
esting quite apart from the ^ insight into Welsh mining 
methods" referred to so frequently by the boss in his vari- 
ous introductions. In actuality, of course, the men them- 
selves and their ways mental and spiritual constitute ex- 
actly the '^methods'' I am after. 

The house where I'm settled at this moment looks clean, 
with a hard-working woman of less than thirty-five engaged 
in the town's chief pastime of chasing dirt from off the 
door stones and ^^pawsages" just inside, as also from the 
floor of the kitchen which serves as pantry, dining-room, 
and bathroom for the town's bread-winners. All the houses 
are of brick or stone, placed right on the street, and of the 
same plan and pattern as almost all the others of the town, 
with which, indeed, they are all connected under the line 
of roofs unbroken except at the street intersections. With 
their four or six rooms, the water faucet or ^Hap" inside 
the kitchen, and with the toilet plumbing under the same 
roof or across the alley, it is better housing than I saw in 



^^BACK TO THE MINES !^^ 65 

many American mine towns. The rent seems to rim from 
fom* to six and seven dollars, including water and almost a 
ton of coal a month. 

In spite of the attempt at cleanliness which is so evident, 
I find that I must add to the multitudinous bites of the fleas 
of Swansea — for purposes of simplicity I find it easier to 
ascertain their total number by multiplying at the rate of 
twenty per leg or arm ! — the more serious flaming calling- 
cards of the beast that uses the reddest of blood-red ink 
to sign his name. 

Perhaps it is these cards which are responsible for my 
present conviction that this particular way of getting an 
insight into the labor problem has its moments of demoral- 
izing discomfort and forlornness. Anyway, I'll walk out 
for another view of the splendid mountains and for another 
enjojnnent of the pleasantly rushing and murmuring stream 
by the side of the main street, and hope to have plenty of 
active and interesting things — and if possible plenty of 
real, live Bolshevists^ — to cheer me up to-morrow down in 
the deep, dark entries ^ inside.'' 

A Rhondda Coal Town 
July 16. 

First the booming whistle from the pit-head. Then the 
bang-bang on the front door of every house in the town by 
the official '^ knocker-up.'^ Then the sound of the wooden 
and iron shod feet of hurrjdng men. All this started the 
day at 5.30 and got me down to the eggs and the strong 
bacon which the landlady had bought on my directions — 
she would not board me for a fixed sum with prices so un- 
steady. Shortly after, I started off with some sandwiches 
in a paper and some water in a whiskey bottle for the 
day's work. 

Health insurance, etc., had been signed for the day be- 
fore — I wish they would frame the question differently 
from '^To what person should word be sent in case of ac- 



66 



FULL UP AND FED UP 



cident?^' So my safety lamp and number came without 
trouble, though it was evident that the stranger was attract- 
ing a surprising lot of attention. I was certainly not expert 
enough to follow the lead of all the others who immediately 
took their lamp and, after revolving it in a way to test the 
lock, blew upon it above the glass and watched to see if 
by any chance the flame would show it. In that case, I 
presume, they would return it. At the top of the shaft 
all wicks and lamps got a further inspection by a pre- 
sumable expert. All this care gave an unpleasant feeling 
of immistakable gassiness in the pit below. No one gave 
the slightest sign of having read the night before of the 
falling of a cage in a mine just a few miles away, with the 
serious injuring of twenty men. When our turn came to 
be counted into the hoist by the ^^ banksman'^ I had to shut 
my eyes to keep out the dirt as the engineer gave us a quick 
plunge down the thousand feet to the ^^ bottom." 

It was a pretty dark place in spite of the few electric 
lights — ^very different from the whitewashed and bril- 
liantly illuminated ^^ central station" of the second mine of 
last year, back in Pennsylvania. A few inquiries got me 
to some sort of boss who called to another to take me down 
to '^ Evans, in 18," so we ^started past the crowds of boys 
and men who seemed to be waiting for ^^pit eyes" before 
starting off toward their locations. Our oil-flame lamps 
gave little enough light, though mostly we walked in groups 
with every one's lamp carried near the ground. In addi- 
tion to the timbers which had to be watched for bumps, 
there were also, every few yards, the iron hangers for carry- 
ing the steel ^' ropes" or cables by which the cars of coal 
are brought to the bottom for sending up on the hoist. The 
coal seam has been so disturbed here that the same seam 
is to be found at a variety of depths. This means that — 
as I found to my surprise and my sorrow — ^we were climb- 
ing first up hill then down as we walked along the main 



^^BACK TO THE MINES !'^ 67 

headings to our destination. These ups and downs would 
have made it very risky for men to ride to their districts 
in the ^^ man-trip/' or train, as we did in one of the Pennsyl- 
vania mines. Finally after we had walked close to two 
miles up and down, I was given, after another disconcert- 
ingly careful inspection of our lamps, into the hands of 
Evans, the repair man. With another laborer we started 
off through some very tiunble-down portions of the ^^ return 
air passage^' for the fixing of a ^^gob'^ or heap of slate and 
'^muck'' so held in place by our wall of stone as to carry 
some of the weight of the roof when the timbers should 
give out. 

We had moved only a few of the rails and ties there after 
we had sat down to 'Hake a blow'' to rest from the long 
and I must say unusually tiring, walk, before a fireman 
(fire boss in America) came hurriedly to say that a fall 
had just occured in a near-by heading. It was evidently 
up to us to fix it up before the expected fall of further parts 
of the roof occiurred and so prevent coal from being taken 
out from ''by there,'' as the Welsh put it. So with each 
of us carrying his proper share of the picks 'and shovels, 
sledges and bars, we made our way — ^with many bumps 
for the least experienced — through some very dreary pas- 
sages to the place where we tried to keep one eye on the 
work of our shovels in throwing the fallen slate away and 
another on a nasty-looking piece of "top," as the repairer 
called it. 

"Stawnd'you, quick, by there, not by 'ere!" Evans 
said when he had looked it all over carefully and expertly. 
"By 'ere, if it fall, it 'ave to bounce by there." 

With the same sort of skill he chose the exact place where 
he should stand for striking a half-fallen rock with his 
heavy iron bar until finally it came thundering down — 
after he had counselled the other two of us to stand well 
back under the timbers. With similar "know-how," too. 



68 FULL UP AND FED UP 

he showed how to take note of the grain of the great rock 
so as to make the strokes of our sledges count for breaking 
it into pieces small enough to be pushed and carried to one 
side. When the big and handsome draft-horse came along 
and got past without let or danger with its tram of coal — 
these Welshman call it ^^dram'' — ^we shouldered our tools 
again and went back with the feehng that the successful 
maintenance of way and so the moving of coal pretty much 
depended upon us, in spite of our having the humblest job 
in the mine outside of the work given to boys. 

I wish I could paint the picture presented an hour or so 
later when Powell, the under-manager or under-superin- 
tendent, came along to look us and our work over and the 
conversation got quickly around to the recent funeral dem- 
onstration. All the light, of course, came from our safety- 
lamps suspended by their hooked handles from the edges 
of the upturned or ^Himibled'' ^^dram,'' with the darkness 
making a heavy frame around the gray figures and the 
coal-covered, sweaty faces of the four of us. Evans was 
on his knees — the result of old habits favored by the thin 
seams of coal he had met and mastered in his forty-three 
years of work in this one pit ! His face showed the lines 
of a lot of Uving and working and also of a good deal of 
thinking. Powell, Sanders, Evans's buddy, and I sat or 
stood about, with the shadows of our heads sprawling over 
the rough rock of the low ^Hop,'' which almost touched us. 

^^To ^elp the other fellow a great mon the dead chap 
was. Twas for thot we fawncied goin' to 'is funeral,'' 
argued Evans. ^'PubUc-spirited 'e was, d'ye see? Besides 
a good mon on our deputations to the management." 

^^Well, poor respect to such a man, I call it, to go to his 
funeral without so much as washing your face!" answered 
Powell. ^^And any of you who were his friends could have 
got permission to get off in time for a swill before you saw 
him buried if you had asked for it, you know," 



^^BACK TO THE MINES !'^ 69 

"Ah, but two carriages they said was all to be furnished 
and what chawnce would I 'ave 'o bein' in 'em? No, when 
ye refused us to come out at the regular time all of us 'ad 
to support each other's dirty faces in the payin' of oor re- 
spect." 

"Well, then, you should have supported each other in 
coming home again with proper decorum instead of singing 
and skylarking disgracefully as you did. A thousand men of 
^you! For shame!" 

"To play the mon — that's me motto and as the good 
Book says, 'Do unto others' and 'Bear ye one another's 
burdens.' Thot's what all of us must do, dead or alive," 
the old man fairly shouted when the dispute grew hotter. 
"And all thot's the last thing the company do be a thinkin' 
'av these days, I tell 'oo, Mr. Powell! These extremists, 
mind ye, go too far. But more perse-oo-asion — thot's what 
we should 'awve around 'ere in the whool place. There's 
noon av us thot wants a bit more than proper joostice. 
Thot — with more perse-oo-asion — ^and all would be ^appy 
'ere aboot." 

. "All I know," said the much-tried under-manager when 
things had cooled down just as they came closest to boil- 
ing over, "all I know is that there's no pleasure in a job 
like mine about the place these days — ^when everybody 
seems to want a fair sight more than justice for themselves 
and to give a fair sight less than justice to others around 
them. I'm fair sick of it all, I jolly well know that." 

"It's not so much what the boys do 'awve to-day as what 
their forefathers in the mine been 'awving," explained the 
old miner when we had started back to our "gob" after the 
hour's strenuous discussion. "Mony and mony av us 
'awve worked our furtnight by some place, ye oonderstand, 
and then 'ahd to pay our buddies more than we earned 
ourselves. Too much ^AU right. Let it he!' there been 
around by 'ere, too, from a certain official some years ago 



70 FULL UP AND FED UP 

and now. A fireman I was, but it was too much the lash av 
my tongue thot was to drive me men for me to stay on it. 
I believe too much in the good of fair words for the workin' 
man — I know ^ow they gets the best out av me, ye oonder- 
stand. The new manager been more for this nor the old 
un, but 'e's ^ahd to go way, fair sick and like to die o' the 
worry av it all — ^with the ^Bolshies' and all, these months." 

His other helper, Sanders, is a clean-cut young man who 
seems to have little sympathy with the Bolshies, though 
willing to give their arguments a fair hearing. He sings 
the leading part in a home-talent comic opera now on the 
boards and is a teetotaller. 

^^ Sixteen year it been,'' put in the stalwart repairer, 
^^ since drink been on me lips. Me woman it been thot do 
the job. Pity thot I marry only when forty years been 
pawssed. Oop till by then, there been nothin' av evil but 
I been the doer av it — short of murderin' and thievin'. . . . 
'Twas when me older brother died and me mother been 
'ard 'it — she and me fawther 'ad no chawnce to lay by a 
penny, ye' oonderstawnd — 'twas then I told 'er I'd play the 
part av a mon so far as in me lies. 

'^Thot brother went to work by 'ere in this pit when 'e 
been seven. Carried in each morning by me fawther, 'e 
been, to 'elp with the doors and such so the family could 
get the money from the ^ drams.' At nine 'twas me. . . . 
No, never no schoolin'. Mony's the week I've come in afoor 
sun oop and gone oot after sundown — ^and then been too 
done in to care whether the sun been oop or down the 
Sunday. Twelve hours, usual — for ye could stay in as 
long as ye liked and we 'ad to stay long enough to get the 
drams we needed for oor bread and keep. Twelve hours, 
with often a steady go from Friday mornin' till Saturday 
night to try to get a'ead a bit. . . . Yes, thot been in mony 
minds av those who listen now to the Bolshies — though 
they do think they go too far, ye oonderstawnd." 



^^BACK TO THE MINES !'^ 71 

^'Studying and reading we are/^ explained a member of 
the Bolshie group this evening at the pubUc house, ^'so 
now we're fit and ready to govern. We're educated now, 
ye see, just hke the Russian peasants that before the Great 
War was ignorant. Now see how well they're ruling: fit 
they are now and educated. . . . Well, that's because ye 
read the capitalistic press; we 'ave information direct from 
Russia by unprejudiced sources all about the wonderful 
way the working class is governing. We 'ave classes in 
Marx and all the others right 'ere and ijow we're ready to 
take over the job of runnin' the country. First off, we must 
make the company by 'ere so much trouble that they will 
give over the mines to the government. . . • Now ye'U 'ave 
another pint wi' me. Yes, this is my fifth." 

Well, it ^^do look" like an interesting place. The mak- 
ings of trouble are surely in the air. Whether anything 
breaks out before I get away is a question, but the chances 
look good. With all the smoke there should be some fire, 
especially when there appears to be plenty of heat behind 
the smoke. 

Anyway, that ^^gob" and that ^^fall" gave me arms and 
shoulders that can appreciate a bed until that strenuous 
and unforgetting ^^ knocker-up" starts on his noisy rounds 
to-morrow early. 

Same Place 
Saturday, 
July 17. 

To-day I got my lamp and got down to the bottom with- 
out attracting so much attention as yesterday. Old Evans 
told me the reason: 

^^I been fair surprised at ye yesterday. Ye see, no miner 
do use the overalls, as ye call them, such as ye do wear 
yesterday. To-day ye look like a goodish miner man, wi' 
yer box awnd yer Jack in yer pocket like." 

The tin box was lent me by ^Hhe boss" and keeps your 



72 FULL UP AND FED UP 

sandwiches from being eaten by the rats that infest the 
mine — ^also your coat, for they often eat that in trying to 
get at the food. The Jack is the name for the tin water- 
bottle or flask which, to show you're a regular miner, must 
be carried in the coat pocket. It was positively comical to 
see how insistent my pal Sanders was yesterday in giving 
me instructions as to exactly what and how and when I 
must do to-day so as to show myseK like the rest. After he 
had critically examined my jersey he very considerately 
opined that it would do, without the muflBler which would 
otherwise have been the proper form. Of course, he agreed 
with Evans that the machinist suit of overalls which the local 
storekeeper put over on me would never do, because never 
worn there by anybody who ever did any actual work. 

"In the old days,'' went on Evans, "we did used to 'ave 
'andsome ^ Yorks' of fine leather with silver buckles on 'em 
to catch up our pants wi' below the knees, instead o' these 
'ere strings as now. Awnd silver buttons, too, been on our 
wide-flarin' pants at the bottoms, some'at like s'ilors. But 
I guess we gives such things the attention like thot because 
we was wearin' 'em, those days, near all the howers (hours) 
o' the day. 'Twas Sundays only thot we did used to wear 
the reg'lar ones, and seldom then.'' 

The surprising thing is, not so much the exact particular- 
ity of the requirements which go with every job in the 
working world, but rather how largely these requirements 
for good form are evidently the result of long experience. 
Most of these in this connection come from that old fact 
that the miner works hard while he's at it and then "takes 
a blow" for a short loaf. That means that he must be pre- 
pared easily to peel ofif the coat and vest and shirt and have 
on only an undershirt and pants for the heavy sweating re- 
quired to rip the coal from "the face" and get it into the 
"dram," or car, before the "haulier" comes to get it out to 
the switch or "parting" with his handsome big horse. Any- 



^^BACK TO THE MINES!" 73 

thing like shoulder overalls that lessen the ease of this 
peeling off for the work, or the later covering up when the 
walk back to the bottom brings you more and more into 
the strong draft of the fans> is sure to be taboo among 
miners and — quite properl3^ 

Just now, at least, there seems to be a great deal of con- 
versation going on in the headings — considerably more con- 
versation than perspiration. This morning we were shovel- 
ling our ^^muck'' of stone and refuse into the gob pretty 
well, but it was ^^down tools'' for quite a while when a 
^'bradish man" (bratticer or partition and door fixer) 
came along. After speaking of the pride he had in doing a 
*^good job" of air-tightness on the door near us, he pro- 
ceeded to help us talk over the present tense situation be- 
tween the management and the men. 

^'It's goin' too far these Bolshies be. Aye, we must 
'ave order o' some kind, you know. But then we must all 
'ave the chawnce to play the mon, too. The manager 'e 
do forget thot. Of coorse, 'e 'ave worked oop from the 
bottom like, but 'e do think too much we been now the 
same as w'en he tell us always: ^If ye do-unt^like it, let it 
lie and take yer tools and go.' And our leaders in Parlia- 
ment, too — ^wuU, if they do start a-mis-representin' us, 
then 'tis for us to show 'um by direct action. And if thot 
costs a few lives it do only show the value of what we do 
gain from ut — for things valooable do always cost some'at, 
whatever, doun't they? . . . Still, where will law and or- 
der be then, I do wonder, I do." 

In such talks ^ inside" as well as elsewhere above ground 
in this part of the country, the great complaint seems to be 
that the once radical leaders grow conservative the moment 
they get to Parliament or otherwise come into serious re- 
sponsibility. Thereupon their former constituents begin to 
think disorder the only way of getting their way — their 
radical way. In any event, or, as these people say, ^^what- 



74 FULL UP AND FED UP 

ever/^ the extremists are quite evidently getting a pretty 
respectful hearing at the hands of the older workers here 
who are much puzzled what to think of it all. About half 
the usual amount of coal is coming out of the pits. Fully 
eighty per cent of the '^colliers'' or hewers of coal at the 
face are said to have abandoned all effort to get out a de- 
cent amount of coal per day and are taking the minimum 
wage established by law — ^about five pounds seven per week 
— ^without really earning it. As a result, accurate weights 
are no longer of interest to the men. So the local union is 
reported to have dismissed, quite without previous notice 
and without further responsibility to them, the old men 
who for years have served their fellow-workers faithfully as 
check weighmen. These officials are hired by the union to 
verify the weights of each as sent up and credited to the 
proper collier. These here are now beseeching the manage- 
ment for jobs, but they are too old to handle tools. Every- 
body, whether worker or official, seems to be about as un- 
happy over it all as the under-manager reported himself 
yesterday. 

Underground the hours go by with fair speed, partly be- 
cause we have the seven-hour day ^^from bank to bank" — 
that is, from outside to outside, including the two-mile 
walk each way. Outside, the women seem nev^r to finish 
their work with the threshold stones, nor the children their 
play in the streets. Strangely enough, these last seem at 
one and the same time the dirtiest and worst dressed and 
the happiest and least quarrelsome lot imaginable — also the 
most undertoothed and ill-toothed. Am told that this is 
because dentists have not yet come into the valley except 
rarely, with tooth-brushes an equal rarity. Until recently 
a toothache here has meant appealing first to a doctor, 
who felt fussing with people's dirty teeth beneath his dig- 
nity, and then going to a certain miner who — ^without wash- 
ing up after his day in the pit — ^would reach for his pliers 



^^BACK TO THE MINES !'^ 75 

while the victim showed him which tooth was guilty, and 
perhaps asked the doctor to hold his head ! All the young- 
sters seem to come naturally by a fondness for singing. One 
little tike, of less than four with a big chest and bigger 
stomach, stands up and sings as though he was the prize- 
taker at an Eisteddfod, as doubtless he will be some 
day. 

The mountains seem to be in different mood every time 
we come up out of the pit — though mostly they seem to be 
weeping rain and cold mists which make a fellow appreciate 
the mass of heavy clothes the landlady piles on the bed. 
Which reminds me that that ^^goaf '^ or ^^gob^' in the pit, 
in spite of all the day's dissertations on government, gave 
a wearisome day that makes pushing a pen less attractive 
than ^^ hitting the hay.'' 

Rhondda Valley 
Monday, July 19. 

Well, it certainly looks as though things were going to 
break loose around these parts! How matters can go on 
like this much longer I'm sure I don't know — ^unless the 
management turns philanthropist and sends the men down 
into the pit merely to get away from the constant rain we 
have on top ! For all day down in the headings 1,000 feet 
below it has been little but a succession of Bolshevist meet- 
ings. Although the miner, or collier, to whom I have been 
transferred, and I did almost a fair day's work in the fill- 
ing of our trams, the others at the face near us were either 
arguing lustily or singing most of the day about the beauty 
of the ^^red flag of revolution" to the tune of ^^ Maryland, my 
Maryland!" 

''Ta-k-e. Ta-k-e No-t-ice!" It was the voice of the 
town crier yesterday afternoon that followed the ringing 
of the bell and started the excitement. '^Ta-k-e no-t-ice! 
A- gen-er-al meet-ing will be held this af-ter-noon at four 
o'c-lock to discuss the summonses." Of course, I made 



76 FULL UP AND FED UP 

sure to be there, although it was intended only for the mem- 
bers of the local union. 

It seems that some weeks ago the Monday-morning shift 
refused to go down to work because the Sunday-night shift 
had not gone in, due to their wanting extra pay for the 
Sunday-night hours. The Monday workers figured, of 
course, that the constant falls from a mine roof make it 
harder to work after every shift that has failed to take its 
turn. This refusal for three Mondays had been met by 
sixty miners being ^^siunmonsed^' for the damages caused 
thecompany by their not working without proper reason^ — 
all according to the Mines Act of the realm. 

^^Thot's joost it ! Nobody cawn oonderstand it, so ^twill 
surely puzzle and embarrass the management — ^which is 
exactly w'at we want — so they will countermand the sum- 
monses,'^ the chairman was explaining to the hall of about 
four hundred miners. ^^The more contradictory these 
rules we're makin' now, the better.'' 

'* So, then, men, 'tis understood by each and every one and 
we 'ave all voted and approved the rules to be read now 
by the secretary. 'No collier is to tumble 'is tram (Uft 
it off the rails so that a full car may pass). No collier is 
to fill a tram not provided with the proper pins (for hold- 
ing in the end board safely). No 'aulier is to leave 'is 
'orse, etc., etc' And all this is to be done even though it 
means sabotage and the sending out of no coal at all, at all. 
And now, gentlemen, please note, 'In no case is any collier 
to mark his number or the location of the coal he can send 
cop after due regardin' av these rules.'" 

The rules certainly seemed to cover every possible move, 
even to the non-handUng of the ^^posties" (posts) by the 
timbermen except under certain conditions. On the whole, 
too, the votes showed a pretty unanimous raising of hands, 
with the biggest objections, apparently, coming from the 
still more extreme workers who wanted a definite vote of 



^^BACK TO THE MINES !'^ 77 

''down tools/^ so as the better to uphold their religion of 
''direct action/' Whether for or against, it is certain that 
every one puts into the whole matter an immense amount 
of earnestness and feeling — and soreness against the man- 
agement. Something has surely been eating at these men, 
young and old : the ugliest words with the most fervor be- 
hind them are likely to get the most handclappings and 
whistUngs. 

The high animation of the meeting was still going on 
this morning when we lined up to be counted into the cage 
at the "bank." On the way up the steep hill to the "tip" 
in the pouring rain, by the way, I foimd myself catching 
the spirit which underhes the miner's strange satisfac- 
tion in his work far down below wind and weather: I 
noted with unconcern my sopping wet clothes and thought 
how pleasant — ^how dry and warm — ^it would be down 
there a thousand feet inside! 

"All them rules be constitootional and accordin' to the 
Mines Act," said my new boss called WiUiams the North 
Walesian, to distinguish him from the numberless other 
William Williamses of the town. "But this 'ere not markin' 
o' the drams: av thot I do be ooncertain." 

He has been here in this pit over forty years — ^an old 
chum of my friend the repairer. It kept me busy joining 
him in his greetings of "How be?" and "Shumei!" as we 
passed the crowds waiting at the different "spUts" or 
"partings" of the headings. The way these men can name 
a man yards and yards off down the black entry simply by 
the way his lamp swings is marvellous ! When necessary, 
he explained to his friends that I was studying mining with 
him (all of them have shown themselves extremely friendly, 
especially now that I wear proper miner's togs.) Though 
both fat and old, "William" can rip down enough coal 
from the long wall assigned us to keep me properly busy 
with my shovel and my "curlin' box," — ^a sort of three- 



78 FULL UP AND FED UP 

sided wash-pan or scoop for carrying it to the tram. In- 
stead of putting us into a ^^room'' by ourselves this system 
of ^4ong wair' mining gives us a wide ^^ stair' where only 
a brattice or partition of canvass separates us from a dozen 
and more others working at the same face. While we have 
kept going, these others seem to have given the turn mostly 
to discussing the new rules and damning the management 
— ^and 'most everything else. 

'^But, av coorse, religion be only a cloak to cover and pro- 
tict the capitalists while they rob the workin' classes," 
says one in rebuttal of the driller. The latter is Salvation 
Army exhorter on week-ends. He quotes the Good Book 
about ^^do unto others" and shakes his puzzled head with 
his '^WuU, I been fair woonderin' whether Jesus Christ 
been Bolshie were 'e 'ere the noo." 

''War 'ave wokened the worker, ye oonderstand, to 
know 'is trnnindyoos power. To a degree — 'tis only 
thot, to a degree — ^we know oor power now. And I do be 
thinkin' thot war between oos awnd the United States 
would wike the workpeople av the whool worrld, becoose 
'twould wike the worrkers of the two countries thot dom- 
ineer the worrld, ye oonderstand. Av coorse, the capital- 
ists do be clever in niver goin' quite too far in their oppres- 
sions. 'Twould be better if they did. But the worrld 
war be the oondoin' av them, whatever." 

My listenings get a sharp word from William as he places 
some enormous chunks of coal in a position to raise the 
walls of the tram, thus requiring a tremendous swing for 
me to get my box of coals or ''curls" to the top. Since 
we are working in the "two foot nine" seam that swing 
generally means a bump on my head, even though the seam 
whel*e we are now is thicker than its name. With a final 
"Three Cheers for the Revolution!" from the others, the 
Salvation Army man turns to holding his drill to the hole 
in the hard stone roof while his buddy keeps up a steady, 



'^BACK TO THE MINES!'' 79 

ringing succession of sledge blows upon it — for these two 
are day or job men, not colliers, and therefore not so free 
to decide whether they will work or not. 

Of course WiUiam and I took our ^^blow'' after we had 
walked the two miles to our location past some bad bumps 
on my head and under some awful pieces of ^^ top." In one 
of these he turned, and after pointing to some dreadful look- 
ing roof, touched his lips to counsel silence for fear of caus- 
ing a fall. That's one reason why I've not liked the lusty 
songs about the Revolution; it makes the roof vibrate and 
drop slivers of slate on old William and me as we work! 
In other places he would indulge in occasional listening to 
make sure that no part of it was ^ forking." Laboring 
from about eight and then starting back on the long tire- 
some trudge to the bottom at one or 12.45, with an hour 
instead of the theoretical twenty minutes out for eating and 
dozing, does not leave a great amount of time for actual 
work, especially when the hauUer is seldom on hand with 
his horse as soon as the tram is ready. But while it lasts 
it is hot work, especially when the coUier has to kneel and 
with mighty pick strokes and heavy grunts ^^nick his cor- 
ner," that is, cut the farther end of our stall away from the 
solid pillar of coal that seems to grip the face near it with 
the tightness of stone. It seems that the long-wall method 
of working is favored partly because of its easier venti- 
lation and partly because the elastic kind of roof we have 
here serves to push the coal forward toward the collier in 
a way which permits the ripping off of great bulging yards 
of it except where it connects up with the seam at the 
'^corners," where the roof is still supported by the un- 
mined vein. No machine cutting is needed, and no explo- 
sive charge. The unpleasant part is that this jnore elastic 
roof is said also to be more dangerous ! 

'^By 'ere! Quick, mon, quick!" Under the timbers!" 
John yelled with all his might at me this morning as a huge 



80 FULL UP AND FED UP 

shelf or cliff of the black stuff responded to his pick and 
started to fall in a way to knock out the timbers nearest 
the face, and so to endanger the top above us. I certainly 
did some scrambling ! 

^' Ye'U be knowing the meanin' o^ this?^^ he later asked, 
when on our way out we came by a long gray box the size 
of a coffin in one of the silent headings and he Hfted his 
lamp to show the stretcher inside it. I thought of it — 
indeed I doubt if 111 ever forget it's gray and silent sombre- 
ness — a few minutes later, when we came nearer the bottom 
by the hoist and found the wire cables humming and swing- 
ing dangerously as they pulled up to the bottom the small 
number of trams the day's work had turned out. ^^ These 
do daunt me some'at,'' he shouted above the roar of the 
^^ ropes.'' ^'The overman 'ere mony a year is in bed be- 
cause of 'ima now." 

While we waited for our turn at the hoist a young worker 
with a very bright face told of his seven living children with 
two others dead, and of his start in the mining at the age 
of eleven years and eight months — also of his broken leg 
from one of these same ropes on his second day. About 
the Bolshies he said under his breath: 

'^They're overproud of themselves and their extremes. 
But, after all, they're the mouthpiece of the whool crowd 
of us, for all of us are fair un'appy." 

From him and others at the pit-head we learned that in 
some districts or parts of the mine the colliers had marked 
their trams, while in others they had refused to mark them, 
and so been told to leave for the day. Without the mark- 
ing of the location the company is, of course, powerless to 
know where the coal comes from and so to what landowners 
to pay the royalties of so much per ton. 

Evidently the first day's battle had been a draw. Some 
new move will doubtless be the plan of the leaders for to- 
morrow» There it is now ! The bell of the crier and his 



^^BACK TO THE MINES !^^ 81 

ominous '^Ta-ke no-ti-ce. A general mee-t-ing will be 
held at six o'clock — to discuss the summonses.'' 

It wouldn't be surprising if some pretty rough proposals 
— possibly, even, some bloody ones — ^were put forth, judg- 
ing from some of the whispers against the management 
heard to-day: 

''Millions the company 'awve mide durin' the war! 
Millions ! . . . A tyrant 'e is and alius been, this hagent 
(agent is the term for a sort of general manager). It's a 
petition we should get oop fer awskin' of 'im to leave the 
town. . . . Self-made 'e been, but a self mon too, all for 
number one, 'e been, never a farthin' for the other chap !" 

When men grow as "fair un'appy " on their jobs as these, 
they seem to care amazingly little what happens to them 
in the other sectors of their Uving. That's perhaps the 
dynamic which gets the work of the world done, but it 
can also be the dynamite which may blow the top off when 
things go wrong with the job. 

Well, we shall see what we shall see. Anyway, I wouldn't 
leave the place right now for a life royalty on all the coal in 
the whole country! 

It is these ton royalties, by the way, that contribute 
greatly to the current unhappiness in coal circles generally. 
It seems that the famous Sankey Coal Commission of 
some years ago revealed that the bulk of these royalties, 
aggregating huge sums, went to a comparatively few great 
families made great by some Kingly grant centuries ago. 

July 20th. 

The war is on — ^with the tide turning in favor of the 
Bolshies ! 

This morning we all obeyed the appeals of the leaders 
at last night's meeting to ''carry on" and so went down in 
the pit as usual — only to attend a succession of meetings 
at each of the junction points for the discussion of the 



82 FULL UP AND FED UP 

question, ^Ho mark or not to mark the trams.'^ As near 
like the factory soviet meetings of Russia as anything 
imaginable these gatherings certainly are — as the men put 
their lamps on the ground or suspend them from their 
knees while they sit there in groups, in the black and silent 
headings, talking now English and now Welsh but always 
with fervor. A husky lot of men they are, assuredly, in 
their heavy wooden or cobbled shoes, ragged coats, black- 
ened mufflers or neckerchiefs and grimy trousers, with huge 
leather belts, and tied beneath their knees by their string 
^^yorks.'^ Though some of them seem to have spent too 
many hours away from the sun, their faces are strongly 
drawn and well endowed, with strong cheek-bones, good 
noses, and forward chins. 

Public opinion seems to have been doing a lot of work — 
in favor of the meetings and their resolutions. Says my 
old buddy to the crowd in his great deep voice: 

^^This not markin' o' the drams is child's play and I 
be not goin' along wi' it, ye oonderstawnd. But I do'un't 
Hke a black-leg. Last night at the Park pub there been 
them as says to me: ^Wot mean ye bloody duffers in two 
foot nine by a-markin' o^ yer drams, hye?' . . . No, I 
cawnt think av the rest o' the byes 'ere a-pointin' of their 
fingers at me — ^and the youngsters on the street, mebbe, 
a-hootin' at me kids after I been dead and gone! Thot 
do fair daimt me. Aye. So I'm not a-markin' o' me drams 
to-day — and be damned to 'inn !'' 

When the horses and the hauliers came along as if noth- 
ing was wrong, we broke up the meeting and proceeded 
farther down the heading to another split or switch, where 
we found another group in the midst of heated arguments 
and denunciations of the company and the black-legs. 
Then, perhaps, on again until finally there came back 
from farther on a group that said the inspector in our 
district ^'will na' lock oor lamps!" So every one could 



^^BACK TO THE MINES !'^ 83 

feel that they had ^^ carried on'' according to instructions 
to '^Go in until the company turns ye back — and we'll 
claim damages from the mawsters later for refusin' to let 
us work \\dthout due cause." When we came down in a 
body to the butts or main passages at the bottom by the 
shaft, many were singing lustily — ^and most musically, 
too, about the ^^ blood-red banners of the hoped-for new 
order." As the legs of one hoist load disappeared above 
us we heard a mighty shout — ^with the other two of the 
^^ Three cheers for the revolution!" drowned by the roar 
of the^up-caught cage. 

Of course the pubs have been crowded. Doubtless the 
excitement has justified many an additional pint. 

'^ Aye, my principles do cost me a quid a week or more,'^ 
said a young and rather serious collier who came up to me 
with an offer to treat in apology for his words of the morn- 
ing that had showed how tense the situation was becoming. 
He had, in fact, given me one of the thickest instants of 
the summer so far. Down in the mine while others were 
going out I had asked some one where I could find the 
'^imder-super" for a question or two. Luckily I could 
not find him. When I rejoined a group I heard this man 
ask angrily of the leader of the meetings: 

^^W'at about this 'ere foreigner American a-workin' and 
a-takin' of our jobs w'ilst we fight for our rights?" 

I could do nothing but watch the face of the leader and 
wait. Luckily the leader saw me and laughed his ^^W'y 
mon, right 'ere 'e is!" 

'^Aye," my apologist went on, ^'wi' the stall I 'as I could 
easy mike more nor the minimum, but 'twould not be fair 
to the others. And we must get away from piece-work 
thot mikes differences between comrades — besides mikin' 
men old before their time." 

Here one of his chums came up with his pint and his 
apology to my friend. ^^Hi be 'e as spoke in 'aste and 



84 FULL UP AND FED UP 

anger to ye this morning Thomas, when ye called this mon 
a foreigner. For well ye know that amongst us of the 
International Fraternity all nation do be one. Only dif- 
ferences of clawss do count to divide men. But too sharp 
Hi spoke, and ^ere's me 'awnd on't. Thou know^st I do 
mean it.'' 

'^The w'ip of the mawsters, His thot thot we be makin' 
shorter now and this be the wye to fight 'um through the 
lessenin' of output. Sabotage is a tool thot ony mon of 
principle can wield — ^and must.'' That seems to be the 
general philosophy. 

Outside the pit, a few minutes ago, I met a bright young 
son of an educated Continental father and Welsh mother 
who is said to be the leader of the more intellectual of the 
Bolshies. He is without doubt a clever thinker in the 
meetings and in an argument one of the best talkers and 
arguers I have seen in a long time. It would seem proper 
in a way, too, to say that he is an idealist. He has a well- 
modelled face, sensitive but strong chin, eye-glasses, and 
thick black hair. His reasoning shows how many ways 
there are to arrive at a conclusion if it but be in the line of 
our desires. Here, I submit, is a strong road to follow 
for landing in a soviet: 

'^Well, I may be wrong, but I am gambling the next 
ten or twelve years of my life on my confidence that Rus- 
sia has found the solution of the whole problem of modern 
industrial life. That solution is the soviet. If that is true 
then Russia is going to make every other nation of the 
world adopt the same plan or be beaten by the competition 
and the pressure of right methods in business and govern- 
ment. Of course, the successful adoption of that method 
means the same cost of life of those that sigh for the old 
flesh-pots of class privilege here as it meant in Russia. 
There must be the drenching before the firm seating of 
the proletariat. But that is only a temporary stage. Even 



^^BACK TO THE MINES !'^ 85 

now — before the drenching is finished — they are giving 
better conditions to the people as a whole in Russia than 
anywhere on earth — that we know by our secret channels 
of information. 

*^ . . The great success of the revolutionary propaganda 
throughout the world is due more than anything else to its 
clear-cut opposition to alcohol. Drink does more harm 
to the English worker than all other factors together. 
One reason why I am so much of a pussyfooter (anti- 
drink propagandist) is this: during the war when the pubs 
were closed more than now we had full classes studying 
Karl Marx and all sorts of revolutionary books and sys- 
tems of economics down at my rooms and elsewhere. The 
moment the boys could spend more time with their pints, 
the classes fell off badly. ... If we can get all to stand 
together without flinching, our sabotage will soon make 
the masters realize that their operation of the mines is 
unprofitable. You see, output is where they live, of course. 
. . . And we shall then be ready for taking them over for 
the workers to operate. 

''With the coming of the minimum-wage law in 1911 a 
man can always be sure of a living and things are not so 
bad — especially now that practically all the colliers are 
off of piece-work. But up till then — ^well, often and often 
a man could sweat and sweat and still not earn anything 
from a bad place and besides, was likely to be told by this 
agent we have here — ^and have had for nearly forty years 
— that he could go if he Uked, for there were always job- 
less men ready to take his place. Up till then it has been 
a dog's life, especially here in Wales where the masters are 
making millions though their equipment and methods are 
fifty years behind the times." 

I'd give a lot to know to what extent the philosophiz- 
ings at his maturity have been influenced by the hurt 
feelings of his youth and childhood, following upon his 



86 FULL UP AND FED UP 

birth as an illegitimate or, as it's called here, a ^ ^chance'' 
child. It would not be strange if the war had badly em- 
bittered him. After finally being made legitimate, as a 
youth, the war necessity of knowing who every citizen was, 
put him back into the status of the illegitimate. 

Wednesday, 
July 21st. 

It's not strange that it happened. Sooner or later it 
was bound to come. By some, of course, it is regretted 
as being the work of a drunken rowdy — ^^A sober mon 
would not throw bricks through the hagent's window!'' 
By others the bricks are seriously — though rather silently — 
approved as indicating to the management the feeling of 
the town without, at the same time, resulting too seriously. 
Anyway, the assault is on everybody's tongue. There are 
two or thre€ imported constables in the streets, and the 
whole situation is even tenser than before. 

Last night the deputation sent to see the general manager 
of all the company's pits reported to the meeting that 
they had been given no consideration at all and that it 
was of the utmost importance to keep up the fight in the 
bitterest possible form. All seemed to agree with the 
committee, especially when word came that the stipen- 
diary, or judge of the County Court, in charge of such cases 
had sustained the ^^ summonses." That meant that the 
thousand miners at the two local pits would be required 
to give over to the company, out of their wages, damages 
for the three Mondays of lost work totalUng more than 
2,000 pounds ! At this there was a babel of whistles, hoots, 
jeers, and calls of ^^For shime!" 

It was not surprising to see a great) deal of bitterness 
come out during the meeting between the men themselves, 
the majority of the workers of one pit having gone against 
the vote of the majority and ^^ stabbed their comrades in 



^^BACK TO THE MINES !^^ 87 

the back" by continuing to work and to mark their trams. 
It would not be easy to imagine more impassioned appeals 
than were made to these to show unity of purpose — ^4f 
not for yourselves then for the next generation to follow ye. 
We speak to the better man in ye!" Nor more deadly 
earnestness than that with which some of the offenders 
pleaded their case because of their personal debts, on the 
one hand, or, on the other, their all but fanatical convic-, 
tion that they must oppose every plan which was not out 
and out strike and direct action. 

^'Mr. Chairman and f ellow- workmen ! Mr. Chairman 
and fellow-workmen ! !" His voice shook with his earnest- 
ness and emotion as one old fellow pleaded for his con- 
science. "A mon do 'awve alius the dooty of 'is convic- 
tions. I protest thot I be not a moral criminal in the 
markin' o' me drame! Now w'y don't we down tools? 
In thot case I would do aught thot ony mon could wish." 

It was more than evident, too, from numerous questions 
that to many of them the thought of their share of the 
2,000 pounds sterling was nothing short of terrifying. I 
know of no way in the world for finding the value of money 
equal to attending such a meeting where men's voices 
ring with both anger and the tenderest of emotion when 
they name what seem very moderate smns, knowing that 
those sums represent the difference between comfort and 
suffering for their wives and children. 

The vote to carry on was unanimous — so much so that 
practically every one in our pit felt certain that it would 
only be a matter of marching this morning up the hill 
that leads away from the bottom of the pit, telling the 
over-man that we would not mark the trams and then 
marching down again and going back up to the bank in 
the hoist. And so it was — except for a few meetings again 
on the way, with the safety-lamps shining into faces more 
than ever determined to take every chance for con vine- 



88 FULL UP AND FED UP 

ing the ''mawsters'^ of the futility of trying to collect the 
heavy charge assessed and sustained by the court. I 
only wish I could draw the picture of those determined 
faces, the gray and silent rocks, and timbers of the roof, 
the safety-lamps, suspended across well-patched, swarthy 
knees or leaned against heavy wood-soled shoes, the glints 
of their light reflected back from the flashing eyes of troub- 
led men, the walls of coal or the tin boxes and jacks in an 
occasional pocket — the solid frame of darkness enclosing all. 

All day, of course, it has been more talking. One group 
was made up of three of the oldest and most serious of all 
those I have met or listened to. 

'^Two bawd it be,^' said one, '^thot the manager do not 
move from out the toown. WY> the other day, his deputy be 
down in me district and ^e tell me ^Tom, thot be a good job.' 
I tell 'im, 'In over forty year 'ere thot be the first time thot 
ony mon fer the company do sye to me, ''Tom, thot be a 
good job.''' 

^'0, aye ! Wy, for a good word," cut in one of the others, 
'^ a mon o' sensibility do work 'is guts out ! But no dog be- 
'ave well for a mawster with a w'ip, and for a man of feelin' 
the w'ip of the tongue and the lash of the hp been worse 
nor ony w'ip on ony dog. For thot we 'awve so much o' 
this lash this forty year we do follow as we do these ex- 
tremists, though where we do be a-comin' at 'tis fair 'ard 
to say in such a hower (hour) as this." 

^' These Bolshies no oonderstood Bible," put in a North 
Walesian rock-driller who had learned his English too late 
to get his tenses. ''I think Jesus Christ no Bolshie. . . . 
But I see my family starve befoor go in for work one more 
day against majority, like yesterday!" 

'^Oh, aye! Thou knowst!" assents a companion. "I 
do know thy neighbor Evan Thomas do say yesterday as 
'e do 'awve 'is eye on thee ! . . . Yet 'e would na' wish 
thee 'arm, whatever." 



'^BACK TO THE MINES!'' 89 

Again there is to be a meeting to-night — ^with the pos- 
sibility of news from another deputation that has been in 
conference with the management, under the leadership 
of one of the union's wisest county officials, Again the 
second of the pits has been working, although our own 
has been entirely out. Regret at the failure of the attempt 
on the official's life is amazingly outspoken. Close knots^of 
men are always to be seen and the women seem to have 
much to whisper to each other from their door-steps, even 
though the everlasting scrubbing of the stones continues 
unabated. 

One of the country's new women justices of the peace 
spoke the other night while we waited to hear from a depu- 
tation. She made a fervent appeal that the wife of the 
worker should enjoy all the comforts of electric equipment 
the same as the finest ladies of the land. I could not make 
out whether she secretly realized where some of the trouble 
lay when she passed on to urge that the miners here pass 
the two-thirds vote necessary by law to compel the com- 
pany to put in pit-head baths for an up-keep charge on the 
men of only threepence per week. For her electric equip- 
ment would seem to have small chance when local opinion 
seems to be so divided upon the matter of changing the 
present habits and traditions which keep the women forever 
scrubbing up after their men have brought all the dust and 
grime of the mine into the house. 

'^ Just when I have succeeded in gettin' cleaned oop, then 
'usband comes 'ome and starts disorderin' things with 'is 
bathin'" (pronounced ^^ bath-in"), says the wife of the 
repairer with whom I have just had tea. So it seems to 
be everywhere in the town as well as here in this house. 
Luckily there is a ^^bosh," or trough, where the ^^tap" runs, 
and for the ordinary wash the hot water is poured into it 
after it has served for the washing of the dishes and every- 
thing else in the household. I found it embarrassing that 



90 FULL UP AND FED UP 

first day to know just when the young wife of the over- 
man was going to leave off helping me with the tub of 
hot water for the bath that is inseparable from the min- 
er's work, and so allow me to continue the process in pri- 
vacy. On all sides I learn now that hardly a woman in the 
town but has grown up from childhood perfectly accustomed 
to seeing her father and brother doing their ^^ bath-in' ' un- 
concernedly in the kitchen, which usually serves also for 
general dining-room and sitting-room. 

^^A greater cause of immorality it be than all else to- 
gether — this kitchen bath-in/' is the way all the young 
men support the statement of the woman speaker. 

The obstacles in the way of the two-thirds vote^for the 
pit-head baths are considerable, apparently. At a recent 
national meeting a miner who proposed putting all the 
cost on the employers admitted that at some mines only 
fifteen per cent of the miners used them and at the most 
successful installation only fifty per cent. ^^How can a 
mon get his clothes dry — or mended?" ^^'E do be sure 
to take cold a-coomin' 'ome." These are the points heard, 
besides, of course, the one imported long ago from these 
regions into our American mines, namely, that it is de- 
cidedly unsafe and unhygienic for a miner to wash his 
back! Last night I met a youngster next to me in the 
meeting with whom this question had got past the stage 
of argument. 

'^ Well, I know w'at ^appens. With me 'tis no argument. 
Both 'ave I tried, washin' and no washin'. And I know 
that washin' do give me a cold! So there ye are!" 

It would seem to me that nothing would do so much to 
improve the men's respect for themselves as to put an end 
to this constant passing up and down the street in black- 
ened clothes and faces. Certainly nothing would do so 
much to lessen the heavy burden on the women. Town 
sentiment certainly requires the housewife to have her 



^'BACK TO THE MINES !'^ 91 

threshold on the street well soapstoned and all the brasses 
shining to the Umit if she is to hold her head up among her 
neighbors — I wonder, by the way, if that's the reason why 
the greatest complunent to the standing of a family and 
their respectability here is: ^^Tidy people, they are. Aye, 
fine and tidy they be!" The strange thing is that the 
social requirements seem quite fully to allow the keeper 
of the shining stones and brasses to appear at nearly all 
hours of the day as the last word of personal sloppiness 
and disorder. If it is true, as it very well may be, that 
the two requirements of both domestic and personal tidi- 
ness are mutually exclusive, it seems odd that there should 
not have been a strike against the domestic in favor of the 
personal cleanHness. At the very least, it would look as 
though the wives should get up a movement in favor of 
the pit-head baths. But it is altogether probable that 
they are as much the victims of the traditions of the op- 
position as are their husbands — and would be probably as 
much so in the matter of electricity, too. 

At any rate, the mothers are not the only ones who pay 
the price of hard work for those traditions which favor 
daily dirty faces on the street and perennially dirty backs 
in the kitchen — ^unless wives or daughters wash them. 
The yoimg girls help with the scrubbing, with a coarse 
waist, generally black, around them and a piece of rough 
sacking over their short skirts, their soapstones and brushes 
clasped firmly in hand. The still younger sisters are quite 
likely to be ^^ nursing" the baby — ^with the youngster held 
to their waist by their way of folding a ^^nursin' shawl" 
about them so as to give a free arm. In some cases the 
young nurse is scarcely larger than the nursed — ^using all 
her childish strength to lift her precious load to her little 
shoulder. How it can fail to stunt some of the loyal maids 
I cannot see. 

Just at this moment — and for some days back — I must 



92 FULL UP AND FED UP 

confess I have been the victim of the bad mood which all 
this work induces in the bodies and minds of the women 
and children of the place. On all these days my land- 
lady's temper — ^but perhaps it is something in me that 
helps my surrounding circumstances to put me on edge here 
in the house when I eat my meals in the little room where 
I can hear her scolding and shouting at her whimpering 
little girl of about a year and a haK. Anyway, I'll not 
trust myself to blame her nor to tell more of it until I am 
less weary — ^and touchy — than at present. Perhaps, too, 
we are all of us a little on edge with the uncertainty of the 
situation generally. At any rate we are all hoping that 
the meeting to-night will give news that matters have taken 
a turn more favorable to quiet — ^also to work and wages. 
And now to the crier's party. 

Thursday, 
July 22iid. 

Peace — or, at least, near-peace — at last ! 

Nearly everybody seemed to be glad to get back to 
work again this morning. On the whole, more coal prob- 
ably went up to-day than when the trouble was first start- 
ing. It's not over yet, but at any rate the deputation 
brought back to last night's meeting the news that the 
head officials had agreed to reduce the damages to the 
small sum of 150 pounds, with several weeks for the pay- 
ment of it. At the same time the county leader of the 
union who was mainly responsible for the settlement of 
the affair told the meeting that they were all ^^down the 
drain" in the likelihood of their getting any damages from 
the company for sending them out of the mine after they 
refused to mark their cars. But nobody seemed to take 
that very hard as long as he and the others of the depu- 
tation had made it possible for everybody to go back to 
earning their money without losing their face, seeing that 
the management had given in and lessened the damages. 



^'BACK TO THE MINES !'^ 93 

''Well, this do be a good thing, for it do show tha low 
sort of leaders we do 'ave 'ereabouts, '^ was the way some 
of the older and more conservative men put it this morn- 
ing as we all walked our long black and hilly way into 
the ''two foot nine." 

"Child's play this been, I tell ^oo, all of it except the 
parts thot been constitootional, " put in another; '^but no 
matter, when we all do make decision then we did ought 
to go together.'^ 

"Aye, this county mon thot speaks us all so fair lawst 
night, 'e do go as do all the others. ^ Wy? once 'e been the 
wildest Red in all the kentry — in jail 'e been, for months 
for cause of the Pandy riots. And now ^e do tell us to be 
reasonable and constitootional — now thot 'e 'ave the plan 
to be an M. P. (Member ParUament) and do get 'is ten 
pound the week from all on us." Thus some of the leaders 
tried to get back at their cooler-headed adviser though 
he had got them out of their hole in what I thought a very 
considerate way. 

"While I agree with the coimty secretary," was the 
genteel way Caproni, the best educated of the Bolshevists, 
put it, "that imder ordinary circumstances we should 
keep to the constitution and the law, I insist that we are 
now in a state of war with the management, so that any- 
thing we can think of to embarrass them is, in a manner of 
speaking, constitutional, because in line with our fixed and 
determined poUcy of sabotage." 

But of course the point of it all is that with the threat 
of that dreadful 2,000 poimd sterUng damages no longer 
staring the crowd in the face, the Bolshies were powerless 
to get anything like the majority on their side for continu- 
ing the fight. 

As nearly as I can discover, after making myself a living 
question-mark all over the mine and the town, just that is 
typical of the whole situation. Everywhere the men have 



94 FULL UP AND FED UP 

trotted out their phrases of the ^^proletariat/' ^^class con- 
sciousness and class discipline/' '^operation for public ser- 
vice and not for private profit/' etc., etc. — ^all with very 
marked pride in their manifest learning. But only a few 
questions have been needed to uncover in most cases some 
hidden sense of hurt and soreness arising out of some un- 
pleasant experience with the management, a few months 
or a few years ago. In some cases the experience had 
happened, not to the worker himself at all, but to some one 
close to him, but nevertheless was causing the sore spot in 
his own mind and the squint in his own view-point. And 
in most of these cases the present manager has played a 
part and too often an unworthy part. 

'^ Well, mony the time I 'ave 'ad a bawd place, ye oonder- 
stand, awnd w'en I spoke to 'im 'e'd only say ^right you 
are, let it lie ! ' So for me it was on wi' the work or leave 
the town.'' 

^^Oh, aye, there be mony in the town as paid the twenty- 
one shilUn' a month to buy the 'ouse from the company. 
And on account of no work, ye oonderstand — sometimes 
it did used to be, back in them days, only six or seven turns 
a fortnight's pay — they do lose all they pay." Some- 
thing like this would come in rebuttal of the remarkable 
rent of company houses at a pound a month with sixteen 
hundredweight of coal thrown in. 

^^A six months' strike we 'ave just a twelvemonth after 
our marriage," said Mrs. Evans. ^^Long time it seemed for 
the two of us and this girl 'ere now. Without the shop- 
keepers to carry us, I don't know where we'd been." She 
speaks good English, having been born a ^^ foreigner" to 
these parts — that is, in Birmingham. ^^As good a man he 
been now as he been bad before," she whispers about her 
husband as I take opportunity to express my admiration 
of her man. ^^And any one in town will tell you that I 
couldn't say more than that/' she adds with some pride — 




SALT FIKEMEN OF NORTHERN ENGLAND. 

Workers everywhere were delighted to be "snapped" in their working togs, and 
always offered their addresses 'for copies. American sailors had evidently made it 
appear perfectly proper for an American worker to carry a camera. 





'E been now," his wife said, "as good 
a mon as 'e been bawd before — awnd 
no one could say more than thot ! ' 



"Dirty Dick's my name, but I'm not 
dirty-minded." 



^^BACK TO THE MINES!" 95 

pardonable in view of the report that she is the cause of her 
man's enjoying every one's respect for the past twenty years 
and more. (He will come into a pension of ten shilling 
weekly at seventy from the government, added to by the 
company to the extent of three or five shillings weekly 
according to his record and standing.) 

Altogether it looks a good deal like the Irish question — 
present unhappiness induces the searching of the near and 
distant past for the fuller justification of its mood. 

In the old days, too, the constant fatigue of the long 
hours of ripping a living from the black face of the coal 
seam must undoubtedly have helped to rub in deep what- 
ever difficulties the workers may have had with those about 
them, whether in the management or out. The day cer- 
tainly puts me in a position to beheve that ^'having'' coal 
in a deep mine is hard work. Any one will beheve that who 
will come along and, after walking in the two miles from 
the ^^ bottom," take his ^^curlin' box'' in hand and follow 
after his buddy for trip after trip from the face to the tram, 
never perhaps straightening up because of the lowness of 
the seam, throwing the box high upon the ^^rise" or built- 
up sides of the piled-up tram, without daring to raise his 
head because of the low stony ^Hop," or else carrying some 
great lump carefully so as not to spoil its possibilities as a 
corner for the ^^rise" — always in a darkness which tires the 
eyes in spite of the oil safety-lamps and nearly always 
in the midst of a great deal of coal dust. Somehow all 
this has been much more tiring here than in the mines of 
America. Perhaps one reason is the narrower seam with 
the constant stooping. Of course the depth accounts for 
the greater heat, which is quite noticeable. The earth is said 
to grow hotter by one degree with every fifty feet of depth, 
and this mine is certainly not ventilated enough to offset 
its distance down as against the 300 and 400 feet depths in 
which we worked last year. Outside the smell of the coa.1 



96 FULL UP AND FED UP 

dust or the gas to be met with in the ^'back passages'^ 
where we worked last week, the other distinctive smell of 
these mines is undoubtedly the smell you get the moment 
you come near a miner — sweat, sweaty bodies, and. sweat- 
drenched clothes. 

This afternoon a young miner who was sleeping in the 
reading-room of the workmen's institute or hall said he 
thought most of the men were well tired every day. It 
is easy to believe that this sweat there in the darkness — 
which, by the way, with the dim oil lamps is reported by 
many to cause a great deal of eye trouble* — Phelps make 
the mineworkers hard to get on with for the management. 
To-day I'll swear it must also make them hard to get on 
with in their homes. 

This afternoon I had a lot of sympathy with old William 
Williams, of the North — old and fat he is — ^as he growled 
that he'd ^^ruther load another dram o' coal than walk 
these bloody miles down to the bottom.^' My own back 
and shoulders were aching because we had started off with- 
out stopping for a ^'blow" after we had piled the last tram 
high in double-quick time. After my kitchen ^^bathin"' 
and all through my lonely meal here at the house I have 
wanted to do some strenuous growling myself, not at the 
baby, for the little one seems to me quite good, but at the 
mother, who continues to-day her screams and shouts at 
the poor little tike. 

''Shut up !" she yells at what seems very moderate baby- 
ish whimperings. ''No, you cawn't 'ave it. So there you 
are!" — followed a moment later by the "Well, take it 
and be quiet!" of despairing surrender. 

''Baby! Baby!" again a few moments later as some- 
thing fresh is started. "Oh, I shall fair perish with you, 

* This disease of the eyes, I learn, is called *' nystagmus," and has been the 
subject of many investigations by royal commissions. It is practically 
unknown among American miners, 



^^BACK TO THE MINES!'' 97 

you little slut!" (The woman is usually refined. It ap- 
pears that usages vary in different parts of the English- 
speaking world.) 

This is what has been wearing on me more than any- 
thing else, coming as it has on top of the ache of fatigue, 
the concentration of listening and recalling the conversa- 
tions of the day, and a variety of other discomforts. I pre- 
simie it is this constant scrubbing and washing up which 
is in turn at the bottom of the woman's taking the poor 
child so hard, though something more serious would seem 
to be at the back of it. Anyway, one thing is certain; no- 
body in the town appears to have quite such a soft time as 
some of the papers make out, even if the men are for the 
present in no mood to work as hard as they used to — ^and 
are not likely to — until a lot of obstacles to their better 
understanding with the management are cleared up. 

It appears to me still certain, however, that men gener- 
ally — and miners particularly — prefer to work hard rather 
than to loaf unless they have for some reason or other got 
into a ''jam" with each other or with the ''gaffers," as they 
call the bosses. To-day when we joined some of Willum's 
old pals on the way out, he apologized for his pujQSngs by 
boasting that: "Wull, in me day, I'll do any job under- 
groimd wi' onybody, bar none !" A moment later it looked 
as though there might be blows between him and another 
old man who was certain Willum couldn't make any show- 
ing in comparison with himself in handdrilling a powder- 
hole in the roof "an inch and a 'alf to start and three inches 
wide, oonderstawnd, two feet in." "Swanking," both of 
them, I suppose, but they were certainly taking pleasure 
in their workmanship, even though they tell me here that 
the best workers are the last to boast of it in public be- 
cause of the tradition against manifest conceit. But at 
least it is a reassuring sign when, in such an upset situation 
as this, old men will refrain from their sabotage long enough 



98 FULL UP AND FED UP 

to boast of their prowess as workers — even if they have to 
go back into the past to get their basis for it. 

Well, it is a relief to have no crier for a ^^ General Meet- 
ing !'' this evening. I must say the man does his job with 
as good a voice and enunciation as could be hoped for. 
^^A sovereign a time ^e gets for it. Not bad, is it?^^ says 
my weary landlady. 

So I guess I can go over for a cup of tea with the profes- 
sor who is responsible for my being here — a fine man he 
is in every way, and most learned with regard to coal and 
many other matters. 

Friday, July 23, 
Rhonda Coal Fields. 

The biggest impression of the day — next to my aching 
arms and shoulder-blades — is of mud and rain. When I 
asked one of the miners — they are calling me Charlie very 
familiarly now — the why of the fearful mud of the yard 
about the pit-head he exploded: 

'^ Seven deputations we have had on this bloody mud — 
and only been insulted for our pains. I tell you, you can't 
get nothing here except by force — ^and this week proves it.'' 

'^Five times IVe been to them on the deputations,'' 
said black-haired Caproni. ^^Each time they've told us it 
was well irrigated by nature, — ^and ended by asking me 
why I kept making mischief. The thing they can never 
understand, these masters, is that we agitators cannot 
possibly make mischief. All we can do is to call attention 
to it when they themselves furnish us with itP^ 

Such words are exactly in line with my earlier belief that 
an agitator is '^a man who earns his salt by rubbing it 
into the sore spots which the rest of us allow to exist on 
our body pohtic — or industrial." I hope, however, that the 
man was wrong when he continued: ''Yes, we are back at 
work again — and I think we owe it to the man who threw 
the brick through the agent's window. The only language 



''BACK TO THE MINES!'' 99 

they can understand, these owners, is the language of force 
and violence, else why did they issue the summons in the 
first place?'' 

I ''dunno" what the answer is, but I am mighty sure 
that the fellow is no fool. He told me this morning he had 
been working hard for a living since he was nine. That, 
in addition to his illegitimacy, would make him resemble 
most agitators, in having been pinched severely in ''the 
fell clutch of circumstance." It is pretty certain that he 
would be very glad if the coming ballot would defeat 
the effort to raise the dues of membership in the Miners 
Federation of Great Britain to a shilling weekly. This 
would set the Welsh miners free to run themselves — ^with 
their more radical leadership in control. They would also 
be free to get a higher daily wage than other miners if they 
insisted on the local pre-war arrangement whereby wages 
went up or down with the selling price of coal, an arrange- 
ment very advantageous now to the Welsh, who mine most 
of the high-priced export coal. Such separation would 
be a blow in the back to the "M.F.G.B." now that it has 
recently voted to demand of the government the rescind- 
ing of the fourteen shillings twopence allowed the coal 
producer and seller on every ton of coal for British use and 
the addition of two shillings per day to the wages of all 
miners — besides threatening to "down tools" if this is not 
granted. In addition, the same conference stated that it 
will pay no attention whatever to the law in case the 
government passes the proposed Mines Act for setting up 
joint management and workers' committees and for regu- 
lating wages and other conditions according to areas, thus 
getting away from the need of dealing with the national 
union. 

At the face the day passed quite quickly and with a lot 
of work done because old Willum goes to-night on a " 'oli- 
day." So far he has not given me a chance at a pick. 



100 FULL UP AND FED UP 

He's not to blame so much for that, if I am right in ob- 
serving that a greenhorn might easily get in great danger 
by loosening more of the great coal cliff than he bargained 
for. But though he believes in teaching only by the method 
of 'Vatch me, thot's the best ye cawn do,'' he is at least 
always hard on the job of looking out for my safety. 

That's not a good subject to write about from day to 
day because it isn't wise to speak too soon — at least it 
would not seem so in this district where every day's paper 
has a head-line or two like yesterday's ''ENTOMBED 
10 HOURS!" or ''Merthyr Haulier's Death Mystery." 
But I guess I'm near enough through to thank the old 
man for his call to me to-day, for instance, with his kindly 
''Go you now away from a-'elpin' o' them drillers. Bad 
roof it is — dangerous even for them wi' experience," as 
also for his earher injimctions to "Alius keep your cap on: 
ye nae can tell." 

As we have walked out the miles to the bottom together 
the men have been quick to yell to me when the trains or 
"journeys" ("trips" in American mines) have come thunder- 
ing along in the black headings: 

"Into the manhole! Quick wi' ye!'' followed, perhaps, 
by "Like the 'Irish Mail' they do coom. . . . The coort 
will be decidin' to-morrow whether Jack Jones gets dam- 
ages for bein' 'urted even w'en 'e wuz in one o' them bloody 
man'oles." (Young Sanders tells with great rehsh of the 
miner on a spree in Cardiff who saw a group of West Indian 
negroes approaching and called to his chum: "Quick, Jock, 
'ere cooms a journey o' coal! Into the monhole wi' ye!") 

The professor says that the same roof which permits 
the "long wall" system here also furnishes greater danger 
than anywhere in the British Isles — "and so requires more 
intelligent workmen," which hardly includes me! The 
wire "ropes," he also says, constitute another factor of 
great danger and walking near them when in action is for- 



^^BACK TO THE MINES!'' 101 

bidden by law. I will confess they have frightened me 
with their roar just above my head in the darkness. 
But the men pay no attention to them and walk out when 
they are in action. The observance of the law would make 
them wait till the end of the shift in the unlighted places 
quite distant from the shaft. As it is, they line up by 
the hundreds, a good half -hour before the hoist stops tak- 
ing up the loaded trams of coal — ^in spite of all the manage- 
ment can do to get them to give a better day's work. 
With the trams of coal finally brought to the shaft and 
then "caged up" to the surface, we line up for our turn at 
the cage, after braving the whirrings of the ropes at one 
spot and pausing to listen for any further doings in the 
"top" at some point where rock has fallen on the tracks 
within the previous half -hour. Then I notice the colliers 
— the real getters of coal — taking a certain amount of pre- 
cedence over the hauliers and us day men — ^as becomes 
those whom, in a sense, all the others of us serve. I wonder 
if that is Ukely to continue in case the Bolshies bring about 
the extinction of piece-work, for that will make the collier's 
earnings no longer larger than the others. 

In a mine it is impossible to imagine anything like the 
constant supervision over the effort of the workers from 
hour to hour which is relied upon in many factories to make 
up for the urging which is supphed ordinarily by piece rates. 
In a coal-mine everybody is working more or less by him- 
self, with the five or six hundred workers who use the same 
shaft spread over several miles of territory. If he wants 
to, a man can spend the whole day hardly turning a 
hand — ^and then frame some excuse to the over-man later. 
This same difficulty is also at the bottom of the trouble 
with piece rate or tonnage; they call it here ^^ payment 
by results." In the old days, it appears, the "master" had 
only a few workers and could easily take a look at the face 
of the coal seam when a man complained that it was re- 



102 FULL UP AND FED UP 

quiring more than proper effort to earn a fair weekly pay. 
The master knew his man and his man knew him. If it was 
agreed that the location was bad the man would be allowed 
to ^Vork on the con'' — that is, be given special considera- 
tion for his unsatisfactory place. When the mine grew too 
big to permit such relationships, a foreman or ^ ^gaffer'' had 
to make the decision and the old face-to-face relationship 
was ending and industrial troubles were beginning.* There 
were many instances of managerial tyranny. This finally 
brought the union's demand — the miners' union began as 
early as 1841 — for the recognition of '^abnormal" places. 
There is always much difficulty in agreeing just when a 
place is really abnormal, for when a place goes harder than 
usual the miner is often apt to do considerably less than 
his best in order to make his case as good as possible. 
Now, after years of the unsatisfactoriness following on that 
real difficulty, the minimum wage has been put into opera- 
tion. Theoretically it was to take care only of the worker 
who has an ^ ^abnormal" place, but at the present moment 
it is being taken advantage of as a payment, not for those 
who have bad places, but for any who do not care to work ! 
Also by the Bolshies who claim that it can't be right for 
the fortunate man to put himself above a brother worker 
who may be working harder than he in some less remuner- 
ative location. 

The question I am anxious to ask the heads of the miners' 
union is whether they believe the miner can be relied upon, 
under either private or public operation, to give, without 
the spur of payment by results, enough coal in a day's 
work to hold the circle of British industry together. Unless 
something can be found to get better relations than at pres- 

* The assignment of the location by the superintendent can, of course, 
make or break a miner. The way is therefore lopen to the playing of favor- 
ites or the venting of spites, as also, sometimes, the purchasing of the virtue 
of the miner's wife. 



^^BACK TO THE MINES !'^ 103 

ent, I don't see how it can be done. Why any one should 
suppose that the presence of miners' representatives on the 
National Board of Control would make government opera- 
tion much more efl&cient than now in the ^ ^phones'' and 
telegraph I cannot understand. The sad thing is, that as in 
the case of the union's check — weighman in America or the 
county union ofl&cial here — these ^'high up" representatives 
become distrusted by the rank and file, as soon as they 
begin to react to their responsibilities, by growing conser- 
vative. 

I am more than ever convinced to-night that ^ there's a 
reason" behind even the strangest ideas and actions of our 
fellow hrnnans. When understood, this reason makes the 
conduct of any one of us about as logical as that of any 
other of us. A London alienist, Dr. Hart, shows for in- 
stance how the behavior of the insane is perfectly reasoned 
and logical, granting only the reasonableness of just one 
tiny idea or conception which for some definite reason gets 
itself into the patient's train of thought and so proceeds to 
provide a perfectly logical cause of all the others that follow. 
To-night I feel as though I had found the reason for my fret- 
ful landlady. As a result of that diagnosis which is always 
the biggest step toward cure, I have tried my best to help 
her avoid the tragedy which looms ahead of her and her 
family. 

^^Ah, it's tired I am all the time now — ^and not carin' 
— except to die." So she has explained, perhaps realizing 
the strain of her shoutings at the baby, though she is prob- 
ably quite unconscious of the multitude of times I have 
heard her repeating ^^ Oh dear ! Oh dear ! " under her breath 
with the deepest of sighs, as she served my everlasting 
bacon and eggs in the morning. 

^' Often and often John says: ^Shan't we go out as we 
used to?' But never do I 'ave the courage. So it 'as been 
ever since the twins came — after eight years with no child 



104 FULL UP AND FED UP 

at all. . . . Hours and hours I sit by the stove 'ere and 
cry and cry — cry me eyes out — and never for no reason 
at all. Yes, it was a bye we wanted and when both 'e and 
the girl come, we was the 'appiest in the world. But I do be 
thinkin' it was too good. . . . 'Twas a Sunday night I 
noticed first. All night I sat up with 'im in me arms. 
And on Tuesday 'e was dead. . . . Perhaps some time 
'twill be another — and a bye. But perhaps I'll be dead 
then, too, I'm sure I don't care — I'm too tired out to care. 
Never a day 'ave I enjoyed life since they were born — 
and not because I 'aven't loved them. ... I don't know 
why. The doctor says I just need a rest, but you can see 
there's none of that 'ere — ^with the dirt and all." 

As she talked I felt sorry for the times these last few 
days when I had leaned wearily on the edge of the kitchen 
'^bosh," or porcelain sink, preparatory to the '^bathin" 
after the day in the pit, and wanted to scream when the 
mildest kittens would let out the mildest feline inquiries 
and appeals — and felt positively relieved, a moment later, 
that the wife had herself yelled to the poor pussy: ^^Oh you 
shut up !" For her to yell seemed somehow to relieve me 
of the strain. 

It is perfectly plain that in the course of a year or two 
the ambitious husband will begin to be more conscious of 
the unsatisfactoriness of his once handsome wife (so I 
judge from her picture) and begin to sigh for some more 
sympathetic companion. She is already, of course, visit- 
ing on him her bad temper — or, at least, her unhappy mood 
following from this continual weariness. It hardly seems 
too much to say that what was an attractive and happy 
young married woman less than two years ago is becoming 
at this moment, before the eyes of her husband and friends, 
a very shrew. I have urged a specialist, with all my might, 
but both that and the rest prescribed by the local doctor 
are apparently equally unlikely. 



''BACK TO THE MINES!'' 105 

At least I'm glad I did hold my temper this afternoon 
and the other times when I have wanted to make some 
sort of a nasty ''come-back/' not to the whimpering baby 
but to its troubled mother. 

By George, but this combination of body and soul into 
what we call a person" is an interesting matter ! It does 
look as though we ought to give more study to this com- 
bination than we have yet given if we are going to find 
ways of helping it into better and nobler living. And the^ 
start of all that would appear to be, for all of us who have 
to deal with other humans, whether in small groups or 
great, to hang upon the walls of our minds the legend 
"There's a reason!" 

It's bedtime even though it is still fairly light. Like 
most other nights here, apparently, it is raining and cold 
— with a continuous new supply of rain clouds blowing 
over the mountains at the top valley and down right into 
the town. The only living things that appear to like the 
constant chill and mud are the numerous flock of dirty 
gray geese that noisily parade the streets and alleys. A 
perfect picture of misery is made by the piteously bleating 
sheep and lambs that wander forlornly from one garbage 
pile to the other about the place at all hours of the day 
and night. Just outside the window now some lonely wool- 
clad youngster — born into the world merely to furnish a 
reason for his due portion of mint sauce! — is ma-a-ing 
piteously in a voice amazingly like a boy soprano's. The 
poor thing evidently feels as far from its friends as a certain 
other person who could be named ! 

Rhondda Region, 
Sunday, July 25. 

Thanks to my good friend the professor, have had a 
wonderful ride in a motor all over this southeastern part 
of Wales. Beautiful country it is, too. With him was one 
of the company ofiicials and owners here, a man who has 



106 FULL UP AND FED UP 

lived all his life in this town and has gone from the bottom 
to the head of one of the country's most successful collier- 
ies. To take the drive without being observed by my 
buddies it was necessary to stay out of the pit Saturday 
and join them a little outside the town. 

Among other places we saw the only pit-head shower baths 
in Wales — in full operation on husky, coal-black bodies 
which certainly looked as though they needed them. Un- 
fortunately the capacity of the building does not permit 
serving more than a third of the workers — due mainly to 
the shortage of room for the clothes, which are hung upon 
hooks and then drawn up for drying in the warm air near 
the ceiling. Was glad to be told by some of the "bath-ers'' 
— our ^^ bathers'^ is a word which refers only to those who 
are taking a sea or river bath, or as the saying here is, a 
sea or river ^^bathe^^ — that many more would like to use 
the accommodations if they could, although there are still 
many who are afraid of taking cold. 

At all the other collieries of the company the officials 
were quite discouraged with the attitude of the workers: 

^^What can we do when a dozen men refuse to work 
Sunday for the repairing of the sheaves ?^^ [The sheaves 
are the pair of wheels always visible at the top of a mine 
tipple, serving as pulleys for the wire cables which run from 
the winding drum inside the engine-house, down into the 
shaft.] ^^ By that they make it necessary for five hundred 
of their companions to lose two eight-hour shifts! . . . 
More machinery? Yes, but the men will refuse to work 
with the machine for undercutting the coal. That in spite 
of the fact that actual experience has shown that the col- 
liers earn more with the help of it wherever its use is practi- 
cable!'^ 

The tour only emphasized the impression, gained ear- 
lier from the train through this district, that the housing 
conditions are much better than would easily be found in 



^^BACE TO THE MINES !^' 107 

an American colliery area. All the houses are closely built 
of brick and stone. Except for a few bad back streets 
they are quite fairly attractive and all seem to have some 
sort of indoor plumbing. For miles and miles we were 
scarcely out of sight of one of the well-built and bustling 
mine towns. 

^^ Most of the houses we are renting to our officials and 
workers were built," says the head official, "nearly fifty 
years ago and represented an investment of only sixty or 
eighty pounds each. That's why we can rent them so 
cheaply. . . . Over 1,500 of our 5,000 men own their own 
homes and some 2,000 of them have been with us as much 
as twenty-five years or more." 

Whether the men or the managers are to blame, the con- 
ditions of work inside the mine seem to me less attractive 
here than in the mines I saw in America. The managers 
here are said to be quite slow to adopt either the mechan- 
ical conveyors used at the face on the long-wall system in 
many mines, or the water system for packing the muck into 
the goaf or gob for the later support of the mine roof. Of 
course the better this is packed the less material has to be 
taken up and out onto the dumps, which not only represent 
costly handling but also everywhere disfigure the hand- 
some landscape. Also the less the countryside is bothered 
by the subsidence of the ground when the timber supports 
give way. You certainly get an impression of the age of 
the coal industry here when you see the hugeness of some 
of these dumps — also when you see the old upright engines 
which still operate at some of the pits with a conical drum. 
This was an old attempt to give maximum pulling power 
on the cage when at the bottom, and maximum speed when 
the cage is just descending from the top. 

My two companions have certainly shown me every 
imaginable courtesy. More hospitable or friendly people 
— ^more Christian in every way — could not be thought of. 



108 FULL UP AND FED UP 

They are sorry there is not time to get acquainted with 
^Hhe back-bone of the Rhondda'^ — the miners who are 
beyond middle age, own their own homes, never drink, 
seldom go to the union meetings, and never absent them- 
selves from the chapels or the churches. They agree, 
however, that something like a year's sojourn would be 
required to get close to them — ^also that during last week 
these in our town and at our pit accepted the leadership 
of the Bolshies. Still they contend that very few of this 
old type work in that particular pit, partly because the 
living conditions I have thoilght so good are much worse 
than those in the other part of the town. 

But I am quite wilUng to agree with them that the typi- 
cal Welsh miner is a mighty fine citizen, anxious to do the 
right and play fair as he is able to see fairness. I am pos- 
itively blue at the thought of saying good-by to-morrow 
or next day to some of the good friends I have made here, 
including particularly the professor and his dear wife, the 
official, then ^^the boss'' of that first forlorn and home- 
sick night among these great hills and by no means the 
last, the repairer and his wife. These folks of the valley, 
whether high or humble, are not ashamed to show their 
friendly feelings — that's sure. Big-handed and big-hearted 
men they seem to be, with a strain of sentiment that has 
to have, I judge, the additional outlet of Welsh poetry 
and song. The authors of some of the poetry appearing 
in the local papers are often very humble miners. A male 
chorus from the local collieries here once got the national 
prize, sang before the Queen, toured America, and so on. 
They think rather badly of our American taste when some 
second-rater here goes out to us and in a few years writes 
back that he is at the head of musical interests in some 
Middle Western or Eastern town ! Cleaner of speech they 
all are, too, than most American workers as I have seen 
them. 



^^BACK TO THE MINES !'^ 109 

Most of these men seem to me worthy, I must say, of 
those words the wife said of ^'the boss'' that first day here: 
^^He would do good to all men that 'e do know, 'e would." 
It was when we were looking at the chromos of the family 
in the sacred — ^and unused — parlor there in what the men 
called ^^ Gaffer's Row" of company officials' houses. Sacred 
the parlor really is in that house because it shows the faces 
of the two children — the boy of seventeen and the girl of 
twenty-one — who had died within the last year or two. 
^^Ah, when the bye went it fair knocked the boss. Ever 
since thot 'e been gettin' old fast." 

But even she is puzzled by the times and the spirit grow- 
ing up around them — ^as doubtless are a great many of 
the fine old type. 

'^More wickedness there is now than before, I don't 
know why. Oh, aye, they bet on the 'orses and on every- 
thing else — like the munber o' the next tram thot coomes. 
They even bet on what the minister's text will be — ^and 
then even on the number o' the 'ymns! Awnd why they 
been so restless and trouble-makin' I'm fair put to it to 
know." 

Her puzzlement is pretty much my own at this moment. 
Whether they are niunerous or not, the more radical work- 
ers imdoubtedly do have a lot of influence in this whole 
neighborhood. Every day's conversations make it plainer 
that in this particular pit they are clever enough to make 
use of the unfortunate experiences most of them appear 
to have had with that same agent or superintendent earlier 
mentioned. Elsewhere in the district something else must 
be found to account for the spirit of unrest so general in 
South Wales and especially in the South Wales coal-fields. 
It can hardly be simply the black past of two generations 
ago in mining in general, because that would be equally 
true for the fields in the English Midlands, reported much 
more conservative. It may be that, as one of the rev- 



no FULL UP AND FED UP 

olutionists suggested the other day, these mountains tie 
everybody to a very narrow groove and make the local 
miner less open to the currents of national and international 
interest which are evidently blowing on the faces of the 
miners of England. 

One thing I have noticed — that to most of the radicals 
the whole thing seems to have that delightful simplicity 
which appears only to the eye of the ignorant. As we came 
out of the pit the other morning, the same chap who had 
told how the Russians had ^'got educated since the war, 
so why shouldn't we?^' — all, be it ob erved, in the twin- 
kling of an eye! — v/ent on very knowingly to show how 
simple the whole change was here: 

'^You see, afore the war we used to earn our livin' by 
'ere'' (pointing to his arm), ^^but now we does it by 'ere!" 
(with a very impressive finger to his head !) 

He is the same one who is perfectly sure that the larger 
use of coke and its by-products is giving the operators 
even larger profits than before. Evidently he has not the 
faintest idea that not all coals are cokable and very few 
from this region. In short, his argmnents are those of a 
man who has been primed by leaders and teachers who 
evidently talked now about the present, now about the past, 
and again about the future without telling him when they 
were shifting gears from one into the other. The one sure 
thing is that he is greatly impressed with his information, 
though he has constantly to refer to his 'Heachers" for the 
exact details: ^^ They'll tell ye the exact number o' millions 
o' profit. I cawn't recall 'em." 

All of which makes me wish that the employers would 
think more about education and less about force as the way 
out and over the present misunderstanding. In view of all 
that has already happened, however, it isn't strange that 
neither side feels like stopping the fight. 

''We have to decide," said a high official, ''whether we 



'^BACK TO THE MINES !'^ 111 

will give in to the men and give over all thought of manage- 
ment — and profit — or, on the contrary, make a fight for 
every inch. The slightest show of good-will is taken either 
as a surrender to their superior force or as some sham for 
getting them into our toils. ^If the management proposes 
it, it must be bad for us !' they say — ^as, for instance, when 
we proposed to make a gift toward the hospital. It's now 
going up over there — some six years after they first started 
fighting it.'' 

A moment later my heart sank as he continued: ^^And 
when things cool off a hit we'll summon them all for damages 
for those missed days this past week.^^ 

When I made bold to suggest that they require their 
trouble-making official to restrict himself to the duties of 
his recent promotion and put more authority to deal with 
the men onto his subordinates, the answer was discouraging: 
''But no one can possibly know the men or be more sym- 
pathetic with them than he; for he used to be one of them!^^ 
(Which isn't necessarily true at all, and is often the re- 
verse.) Then he went on: ''And besides many of our sub- 
ordinate officials we can't trust— not so much as we can 
many of our workers !" 

'Twould appear that the chief factor in the trouble — 
if any of my "Big Four" are here — ^is not to be found in 
the unsteady job. Ordinarily the mines run very regularly, 
so I'm told. Car supply is so good that if a mine stops on 
that account it is wired all over the country. "Tiredness 
and temper from bad working or living conditions" is hardly 
a main cause of the local trouble, though it helps. The 
mental factor of misunderstanding certainly figures con- 
siderably in spite of the fact that these men and managers 
have all grown up together. For the local problem, at least, 
it appears evident that the chief trouble is caused by the 
men's feeUng that the agent and their self-respect cannot 
get on together; at least that feeling is evidently giving the 



112 FULL UP AND FED UP 

Bolshies their handle and, judging from the attitude of 
my official friend, is likely to continue to do so for some time. 

Altogether it looks pretty hopeless — especially consider- 
ing that the Bolshies will probably do their utmost to keep 
the management from taking the game out of their hands 
by any efforts, to get into good relations with the men. 

Meanwhile, partly because of this situation and partly 
because of the government's effort to restrict the export- 
ing of coal, ships cannot ^ ^bunker'' nor find return cargoes 
after bringing in trom France the pit timber for the mines 
or from Spain the iron for the mills. This increases freight 
rates and thus raises the cost of living. The same England 
that used to export coal all over the world is getting it now 
from Africa, the United States, and even from Australia, 
12,000 miles away — with China waking up and breaking in- 
to things with the newly arranged delivery of 100,000 tons 
of the black fuel at Marseilles and 10,000 tons sold to the 
Danish state railways! It looks as though England's 
'^key commodity" was in a bad way. Mention is often 
made of the amount of coal we have in America that can 
be worked by the steam shovels in our open-pit mines, yet 
it does seem odd that our tons per man per year should be 
so much more than they are here — with our 735,000 miners 
getting out something like 700,000,000 tons against Great 
Britain's 1,200,000 miners getting only about 230,000,000 
tons! And on top of that, there is a serious possibility 
that a strike of all the miners here will be declared before 
the end of August ! Also a six-hour day instead of seven 
comes, I understand, into effect automatically next simamer ! 
With the seven-hour day 220,000 miners here in Wales 
have produced a million tons less than 207,000 miners 
produced last year on an eight-hour day. 

If the present feeling here against piece-work or tonnage 
payment gets its way, the whole industry as I see it will 
commit hari-kari — with its pick and shovel as it were. 



^^BACK TO THE MINES !^' 113 

And, as I see it, little enough salvation is to be expected 
from government operation, too many workers are expect- 
ing to go easy and ^Hike no chawnces'' then. If the leaders 
play into the hands of the Bolshevists by working for this 
flat-day rate, the dispute will be quieter but the mines will 
be duller. In any event, it is certainly urgent that some 
means be taken to get the men into a better mood. Per- 
haps one way would be for the government to call a con- 
ference and while it asks the men to give a better day's 
work, ask the owners to take steps to improve their methods 
of operation. This latter, however, would probably meet 
the opposition of the great mass of workers. They appear 
pretty generally to believe that every man born in a mine 
town has a more or less inalienable right to a miner's job 
and the enjoyment of a miner's full year's pay, even if 
machinery might get the work done with only four or five 
days' work each week. It would also get slight favor from 
the operators. Naturally they feel skittish about investing 
millions in equipment with the sword of nationalization 
hanging over their heads. So, as everybody over here says 
in a pinch, ^^' And there you a'y!" Which, being inter- 
preted, means ^'And there you aren't!" 

'Twill be fine to see the English coal-fields and the feel- 
ings of the men that work them. 

A fellow can't live in this district — or for that matter in 
Britain anywhere, without getting coal pretty deep into 
his system. The pillars of British trade and commerce — 
indeed of British life — rest on these seams of British coal 
— and so upon the muscles and the ^ ^mentals" of the hardy 
men that shovel these precious seams to the surface and 
into the country's ships and fire-boxes. 

But more about coal when we get to Yorkshire. 



114 FULL UP AND FED UP 

Newport, S. Wales, 
Wednesday, July 27. 

It was a weary day yesterday; with the strain of the pits 
behind it, it made a movie here last night look attractive. 
But get away from the labor problem ! No bloomin' fear 
— ^as the expression goes here. Just when the plot was 
getting interesting, with the villain about to get his proper 
handling, a slide came on, announcing in a hurried scrawl : 

^^In view of the strike of the laborers at the municipal 
generating station, the lights and power of the trams 
and all the city will be turned off in four minutes. Good 
Night!'' 

Everybody went to bed by candle-hght. Even this 
morning the good nature of everybody has been amazing. 
A majority of the workers of the town of 30,000 people is 
said to be put out of work because eighty maintenance-of- 
way men — ^practically unskilled labor — ^are asking for 2/1 
per hour. That is several pence in advance of workers of 
the same grade in neighboring cities. 

Over in the great dock district steamers from Japan or 
Australia are to be seen alongside sailing boats, or ^^wind- 
jammers,'' from the Argentine. The trouble is that there , 
is nothing like the proper number of them. Everybody ^ 
is complaining. The reason is coal — ^no coal. A prom- 
inent M. P. of Cardiff states publicly that an additional } 
reason is the high rates and low energies of the district's '• 
unionized workers. These, he claims, are driving many -i 
ships to get their repairing done at Antwerp and Rotter- ♦ 
dam, especially now that no bunkers can be filled with 
coal except after the greatest and most annoying and ex- 
pensive delay. Some 3,000 dockers and other ship workers 
here are said to be facing starvation. It is a sad sight 
to see hundreds of them there at the hiring offices by the 
gate of the huge dock. 

^^ Bloody few they're tykin' on, with all them a comin' 



^'BACK TO THE MINES !'^ 115 

out," said one big fellow as we saw about thirty coming from 
the hiring office to rejoin their fellows in the crowd. 

^'Not living I eyen't — ^just bloody lingering I calls it/' an- 
swered another hotly when I asked if he made his Uving 
there on the docks. ^^Not one bloody hower of work 'awve 
I ^ad in ten weeks!'' 

It seems a heavy price to pay for the sabotage and un- 
happiness of my recent buddies. 

These docks must have been a busy place in war time 
when many cruisers and torpedo-boats came here for over-; 
hauling, and when 5,000 girls worked at repairing the boxes 
for holding shell cartridges, returning them in good order 
to the munitions factories and the front. This last week a 
man was cleaning up the weeds that now grow there — they 
are threatening now to grow on the docks themselves ! The 
poor fellow cut into a stray shell which proceeded to kill 
him and wound his mate. 

Yesterday a visit to one of the district's noted steel 
towns permitted a good look at the long valley-filling plant 
which has lately been claiming the largest blast-furnaces in 
the world and promising ^Hhe cheapest steel in the world." 
Largest in Europe proves the correct title: the two big 
furnaces are being put up according to American patents 
by American contractors. Most of the steel is made by 
Bessemers which will get their '^hot metal" from these 
furnaces. Thirty thousand men work there, though most 
of them dig coal from right under the plant. The open- 
hearths are small and hand-charged. The papers say, how- 
ever, that a miUion poimds sterling is being spent in new 
equipment and development, in addition to the opening up 
of a new ore-field in Northamptonshire to increase the 
supply now being got from Spain. 

The open-hearth helpers or ^^ hands" on the ^^ smelters" 
were heartily glad to be done, since a year ago in March, 
with the twelve-hour shift. They do not seem to have 



116 FULL UP AND FED UP 

known it in its prime, that is, with the seven-day week, for 
they used to knock off for week-end and only take an occa- 
sional Sunday or Saturday afternoon turn looking after the 
gas. Sounds mighty pleasant ! 

Strangely enough, the manager of the smelting stage was 
the only man still working the long turn-in order, I suppose, 
to share his responsibility and his income with only one 
assistant. 

^^Not for two jobs like this would I give up my member- 
ship in the Union of Smelters and in the Officials Associa- 
tion!'^ was his surprising answer. 

The general manager of the plant is said to be one of the 
coming men of the country. One of his assistants is try- 
ing to put into operation his ideas about better industrial 
relations, and has about 4,000 workers paying twopence 
per week toward a sports field, some classes, etc., while the 
majority of the officials are sure the plan won't work, and 
the workers mostly wonder what dodge the manager is 
up to now. 

The working conditions looked to me quite bad. 

^^The biggest reason we can't treat the men as well as 
we'd like at the pay window, for instance, is because our 
pay-clerks like so jolly well to rub into the other workers 
their own superiority. All of these clerks are, of course, 
members of the clerks' union themselves, so that we have 
to be jolly careful what we say." This was the answer of 
a young official to whom the assistant was good enough to 
introduce me. 

An energetic young man in charge of coal operations 
stopped off with two years' study at Boston Tech largely 
because English law requires of all operating officials a 
full five years of actual mine experience. That evidently 
discourages full scientific study by making full preparation 
too long. 

''Yes, you can get work, I dare say," people in the town 



^'BACK TO THE MINES !'^ 117 

and at the furnaces said, ''but it's a bally sight harder to 
find lodgin's. Men leave every day on that account/' 

^^ Wanted — Men for France, Malay States, Gold Coast, 
Nigeria and Nyasa Land," was the note on the Ministry of 
Labor's Exchange. 

^' We'll put you in touch with the London office of these 
foreign employers if you wish," the clerks told me when 
I inquired, ''but you'll have no trouble getting on here at 
the works if you like." I shook my head, having in mind 
both the apparent impossibility of getting a bed in the 
town and the necessity of getting acquainted with other 
parts of Britain. 

A young laborer who called himself a navvy and looked 
it, spent the twenty miles or so into Newport boasting of 
his luck in picking up a street laborer's job in twenty 
minutes. But he said he would only "stick it" the week 
because of the costliness and slowness of the trains back 
and forth. 

Meanwhile I feel with the man yesterday on the train 
near Northhyr-Tidville who hves in a very poverty-stricken 
looking steel town in this district: 

"I want to go back to America where I fought at San 
Juan Hill and saw Admiral Cervera's boats get knocked 
up, one by one — and where a man's kiddies get a much 
better chance than here. This country's bad for two 
reasons, taxes and weather." 

So endeth the First Episode. 

If the others are anything like it, I'll be wanting to tell 
every employer in America something like this: "Be care- 
ful you don't play into the hands of the unions by trying 
to keep your relations with great groups of workers entirely 
on the old individuaUstic basis, denying them the right of 
some kind of collective or representative dealing through 
shop committees or otherwise. But don't let any form of 
representative dealing, whether with shop committees or 



118 FULL UP AND FED UP 

unions, cause you to forget for one moment the prime 
importance of maintaining close personal and individual 
contacts and relationships between your workers and the 
company as personified to the men in your carefully chosen 
and continuously trained foremen. Continue to build 
these representatives of the company and to hold up their 
hands so that through them the men will know what the 
company itself looks like — ^and so that they will like its 
looks. Consider every individual grievance that comes to 
the committees a proof of a failure of those representatives 
of you and the company — that is, of every foreman and 
other officer to perform properly his true function as contact- 
point interpreters. In other words, have the committees 
or the union as a guarantee of your good faith, but try to 
make them, so far as possible, unnecessary to the happiness 
and self-respect and efficiency of the men. If you can't do 
this, don't blame the leaders too much for building up the 
collective plan into a wall between yourselves and your 
individual constituents.'' 

That may sound reactionary. I don't believe it is as I 
mean it. At any rate, it is sure to occur to any one who 
sees the extent to which management and the individual 
workers are walled off from each other here — to the en- 
dangering of the whole country's industry and life. 

Saturday, July 31st, 
Whitechapel, London. 

Within a few hours the train starts for pastures new. 

Am glad to be carrying away at least one answer to that 
puzzling question: ^^Is something wrong with education 
here, that the undersized boys in the steel and coal towns 
of South Wales seem to think it absurd to keep at it after 
their fourteenth birthday?" 

'^Well, why should they stay longer?" says an Oxford 
graduate at the settlement where I have been staying. 



^'BACK TO THE MINES!'' 119 

^'Just as a miner stated to me: ^If I give my boy more 
schooling he'll not earn a farthing more as a miner for it, 
and all he can become is a clerk [pronounced ^^clark''] or 
a teacher. And at either of these he'll earn considerably 
less than as a miner. So there you are !' . . . Ah, yes, the 
shortage of jobs, even for men of advanced education, is 
most serious, I do assure you. Unless he goes into civil 
service here or in the colonies — at low salary, though with 
considerable security and a pension — there's very Uttle a 
highly educated man can do. I think I may say that my 

war service in the Department was rather exceptional, 

but whenever I talk with any official about an opening in 
trade along that line, I am assured that they are held either 
for relatives of influential people, or for those few — ^very 
few, I assure you — who may work up from the bottom. 
I am told on all sides that I could get a very good berth 
in America with my experience, but with my sisters I can't 
very well pull up." 

There seems to be general agreement with him, which 
makes it again apparent that educational faciUties do not 
amount to a great deal in a coimtry unless there are also 
opportunities for the use — the profitable use of them — that 
means in terms of jobs. Part of the trouble, no doubt, 
comes from the fact that the higher education here is mostly 

classical. At the Rolling Mills, in Ohio, some tests 

showed that the chief trouble makers were men who were 
doing hand jobs when they were fitted and anxious to do 
head jobs. I wonder if by any chance some of the ^intel- 
lectuals" here who are at or near the head of the Socialist 
and similar labor groups, even though they are well-to-do 
and have never worked, are men who fitted themselves in 
the universities for the most important kind of intellectual 
work, and then failed to find it. Whether this is so or not, 
I am certain that in America we must keep an eye on the 
invention of machinery and the constant improvement of 



120 FULL UP AND FED UP 

jobs as well as of our educational facilities in order to avoid 
trouble. The two must go hand in hand — education and 
the jobs that give opportunity for those who have taken 
advantage of it. 

By one of the secretaries to Lloyd George — thanks to a 
letter of introduction, I had tea with him yesterday — it was 
stated that this whole industrial situation is now improv- 
ing since the war, because the university graduates are 
more and more going into business here as in the States. 

The secretary looks like an idealist, but a very practical 
one — altogether a very fine type of young man. He thinks 
that in spite of Bolshevism's claims, the world has pretty 
much established the general principle of political democ- 
racy, with attention now required only for the details of 
better representation, etc. The really big job, therefore, 
is some workable and properly productive establishment of 
industrial democracy. This is going to be not a national 
but an international problem. For instance, the Inter- 
national Miners Conference this very week is proposing 
at Geneva, Switzerland, the universal adoption of the six- 
hour day and five-day week, a world-wide '^down-tool" for 
miners to stop war, etc. (Tom Shaw, a British Labor 
M. P., who is the chairman there, by the way, speaks French 
and German fluently !) 

^^The labor party here, of course, can't fail to have its 
policy on all sorts of international problems, because these 
all come so close to the British worker. . . . On the 
matter of our following America in going dry, I wish you 
would let me have a memo of your ideas and suggestions 
after you have seen conditions in Scotland, and I'll send 
them to Lady Astor. She is very keen on it." 

'^Your secretary friend's boss, Lloyd George, is getting 
away from the people by giving undue hearing to the opin- 
ions of such men as Carson and Bonar Law, because they 
can control votes in the House," said later the newspaper 



^^BACK TO THE MINES!'' 121 

man whose suggestion in Kansas City is responsible for 
my being over here. Then he added, following his recent 
trip to Ireland: 

''Things seem to be getting worse instead of better in the 
Irish muddle. Still I am in close touch with some of the 
leading Sinn Feiners, who tell me they would consent to 
Dominion Home Rule except for the promise they have 
given to the American servant girls, who have invested 
several milUon dollars in the bonds of the Irish Repubhc, 
and they can't back down until they're fought down." 

''We almost never have any cases of discharge of a sort 
that would give any basis for the workers' appeal," said the 
manager of a big department store the same afternoon. 
Apparently the discharging of a person from any job here 
in England is an enormously more serious thing than at 
home. Of course it should be, because getting a job is so 
much more serious. 

"Our working people are leaving the unions," said a 
noted French engineer and manufacturer met at dinner. 
"The extremists got control and tried to have a general 
strike on May 1. But the power was not off three 
minutes because every citizen had quietly been told his 
position to assume when the workers went out. And that 
citizens' organization — it is smiled at, or what you say, 
winked at, by the government — is now permanent, and the 
workers say now: 'Let us bargain. What is the use to 
strike?'" 

At the play afterward the comedians imparted the in- 
formation that as a matter of fact "Madam Butterfly" was 
the mother not of one but of thirteen children ! — ^because — 
"Well, you see, their father was an American, and naturally, 
of course, he beUeved in mass production !" 

Anyway, I stood up straighter this afternoon and lifted 
my hat when the bus drove by the new St. Gaudens statue, 
whose pedestal bore no date and no statement of any sort, 



122 



FULL UP AND FED UP 



only the name ^^ Abraham Lincoln.'^ The papers are print- 
ing — just to show how so many things go back to jobs — 
the splendid letter he wrote to the Lancashire cotton-mill 
workers, expressing gratitude for their loyalty to the cause 
of freedom for the slaves, even though the blockade of the 
Southern ports was closing the mills and threatening them 
with starvation. 

I only wish more Americans could foil a certain American 
newspaper owner and the Irish anti-British propagandists 
generally, by going through the chapels of Westminster 
Abbey and so coming to feel how definite is our inheritance 
of many splendid memories via England, and so a part of 
our own as well as Britain's history. It's the best place 
for stretching hands across the centuries as well as across 
the seas I know, also the best sixpence worth of good his- 
tory in the world. 



CHAPTER IV 

"WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?'^ 

Glasgow, 
Saturday, August 7. 

Mighty poor, for sure, are the prospects for getting any 
job in these parts. 

A letter from a London official to one of the biggest steel 
men here secured good treatment, but the ^4abor super- 
intendent^' was unwilling to risk trouble with his men by 
putting me into the plant as a laborer. So to-morrow I 
am to meet his shop-steward, a man elected by the workers, 
in what seems to be the largest and most progressive steeL 
plant of the city. 

The official says it was during the war that he was put 
in charge of all wage disputes, as well as all hirings and 
firings. Of these last I'll warrant ^Hhey ain't any." Just 
last week I was told that the railway workers who had 
been convicted of long-continued steaUng, — the thefts in- 
cluding five-hundred-dollar pianos, — had, nevertheless, been 
kept on the job at the insistence of the National Union of 
Railwaymen! It appears that during the war this steel 
company got the reputation of having the most unruly 
workers of this whole unruly district. At present the 
^4abor superintendent" is quite certain that this group is 
much happier and is helping to make the whole district 
more quiet. His men run well into the thousands. 

''We are trying to fix everything now so that the extrem- 
ists have no bad conditions to point to, though that some- 
times requires my 'letting a foreman or superintendent 
down' where he's done wrong. We try to keep grievances 

123 



124 FULL UP AND FED UP 

from getting so far along as to call for union treatment. 
But we are lucky in having in British steel a conservative 
and reliable general union — outside the tradesmen's unions 
like the engineers, builders, etc. What we'll have when 
Hodges, Pugh, and the other good leaders die, I don't know, 
but anyway, we must play with them and we are glad to 
play with them. . . . I'm trying to get away from the 
term ^payment by results,' or Apiece-work.' The men 
don't like it because they say it pulls them apart when one 
man manages to get a lot more — or less — than the chap 
right next to him. But they are liking our plan of ^ Co- 
operative or Group Bonus.' By means of this the whole 
gang shares the results of the whole gang's production. By 
it they'll get more than the union gives, provided they all 
work together to get out the steel." 

At another big plant, in a sort of steel suburb, a letter got 
me to the works manager. But both he and his big deputy 
manager (formerly a imion representative) were unwilling 
to take any chance of upsetting their good relations with 
their workers by putting on the job any one who might be 
thought a spy. 

A 'Most of our several thousand men are in the general 
steel worker's union, and ye could na stay long wi'out 
joining. In thirty years it's no trouble we have had — 
except with the tradesmen's unions. If a man has com- 
plaint it is decided by two representatives from both sides, 
and two neutral chairmen. It has worked well. The 
Clyde district ? Ah, thot's duff erent. Most of the trouble 
there has come from the general (conmaon) laborers, and 
they are largely Irish. . . . And there, too, it is so im- 
portant to give the men no cause, ye oonderstand, thot it 
is fair oonlikely that ony employer will hire ye." 

The surprising thing over here is the way a distance of 
twelve miles, as in this case, seems to make the situation 
entirely different. These officers must surely have reason 



^^ WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW ?'' 125 

for thinking that they are not in the Clyde-bank class at 
all, at all. It is a little easier to understand when I recall 
the number of miner folk back in the Rhondda for whom 
the longest trip of their lives took them perhaps to Cardiff 
or Swansea ! 

On the way back to town it was hardly possible to under- 
stand the Scotchiness of some coUiery boys who were 
coming in for this afternoon's field sports. By dint of 
highly concentrated listening it became, finally, possible to 
learn that a ^'guid mon and a braw worker — at the face, ye 
mind, ha? — gets his sax (6) poon' (pound) the week. Uf 
he gi'ed muir coal nor thot, he'd ha' his rate coot. Nae 
mon do muir nor thot, awnd most do only the meenemum 
of seventeen shillin' the day." 

Earl Haig's continued appeals for jobs for the 200,000 
soldiers still jobless makes the prospect of finding work 
without pull pretty punk, and now it looks equally hope- 
less with pull. 

Well, anyway, I haven't altogether lost time in trying to 
learn if '^there's a reason" why the Clyde-bank shipbuild- 
ers and dock workers have the reputation in London, at 
least, of being the most restless and radical of all British 
workmen. It is apparently impossible for any one to be 
here many hours without running into one complicating 
factor — namely whiskey. 

After getting here late Thursday night I sallied forth last 
evening to see if the town was as bad for drunkenness as 
current reports would make it. With my first step onto 
the street I saw two drunken men reeling along through the 
crowd — it was very near the centre of the city — with two 
more encountered in my first fifty yards. Ten feet farther 
there was a crowd watching — with evident enjoyment ! — a 
poor creature of a sottish, middle-aged woman, picking 
herself up from the sidewalk and with unctuous care dust- 
ing off her filthy and bedraggled skirts. Finally, with a 



126 FULL UP AND FED UP 

labored assumption of the magnificent dignity and extreme 
hauteur of a much-maligned but still unsullied perfect lady, 
she lurched in the direction of a drunken man who hap- 
pened to be passing, and when he unexpectedly stopped to 
show her his good-will, she bumped full into him, and then 
caromed off of him across the street and up an alley out 
of sight. 

Four more — ^and then four more— drunken laborers were 
encountered in the next two or three short blocks on the 
way up to a big group collected in the middle of the street. 
There the speaker was proposing seriously that ^^ while our 
British army is in Poland killing our brother Bolshevists, 
we will rise — ^and then call the soldiers back to a London 
and a Glasgow Soviet !'^ A good proportion of his hearers 
appeared delighted, and yelled ^^Hear! hear!^^ with gusto. 

In a very modern and handsome movie theatre Pussyfoot 
Johnson was caricatured in a play which showed him and 
all his colleagues dead drunk at the uproarious end of their 
highly hectic crusadings. By that time it was nine, and 
the pubs were closing. A crowd was watching — with the 
eyes of connoisseurs — a poor chap in the cap and suit of a 
steamship's engineer, slowly pick himself up from the side- 
walk and lean against the building, blood running from his 
nose. Two young girls of about seventeen evidently thought 
it a perfectly lovely joke. Across the street in an alley- 
way — by this time the police had come and ordered the 
engineer on by threat of arrest — the crowd was gathering 
for the enjoyment of a fight. The thin but wiry boy had 
the ragged clothes, dirty neck muffler, long, front hair and 
much-soiled shirt of the laborer; he was not too drunk to 
complain that his opponent had kicked him seriously and 
unfairly, but he was too drunk to take the advice of the 
pair of policemen to drop his quarrel. So they hustled 
him off. 

One of the bystanders protested that ^Hhey would na do 



^^WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?'' 127 

thot uf he was no' a workin' mon, ye mind. Uf 'e 'ad 
money they would 'a' 'elped 'un — noo they stand oop fer 
'is tormentors — awnd they gets part o' 'is fine!" 

Here's the tale of my interpreter: 

'^Me mother is a droonkard — thot's w'y I'm 'ere. A 
perfect vixen she is, too, when she's in liquor. Fifteen year 
ago me father left her — he'd met her, ye see, in a restaurant 
where she was a waitress. Mony chances 'e give 'er, too, 
I will say, but she couldn't do better. Where 'e is noo, I 
don't know. If it wasn't for keepin' an eye on 'er in the 
town 'ere, I think I'd try Canada. Or I could go back to 
the army — and do well, too, after six year of it; but I want 
to try civil life again — an' take a look after 'er, too, y' 
oonde-r-stawnd ? No, I can't live with 'er — she's fair 
impossible. But 'ere at this Salvation Army 'ostel — 
^ model,' they call it — you can get a fair bed for a shillin'. 
But there's a 'alf-dozen in the same room, d 'ye see, an' no 
place to change or 'ave any baggage. I 'ope to get a decent 
job to-morrow — ^with good luck. . . . There's too mony 
people 'ere. Thot's the trouble. Why, before the war you 
could rent ony 'ouse you wanted — ^and now — ^nothing. It 
must be thot they imported a lot of cheap labor — ^Eyetalians 
and all them yellow and black races, ye mind ? — to do the 
work w'ile we was fightin' and now they're oonwillin' to 
give us back our jobs. I'm fair sick of it — these people in 
here, in the ^ model,' they 'ave no refinement w'atever — it's 
nothin' but booze an' filth with 'em all the time. No ambi- 
tion they got to be onybody, and they throw their children 
out on the streets. Oh, I'm fed up on it, I can tell ye. 
Somebody's makin' too much off us workers. They say 
exchinge is bad. Now why should we bother about dollars 
and francs and a' thot — an' everybody — every nation — 
joost mind its own business ! Why should we let exchinge 
bother us — thot's w'at I want to know! One eighth o' 
the people works and the rest is parasites! Out o' fifty 



128 FULL UP AND FED UP 

people ^ere on the streets, I give ye my word, forty-nine of 
'em's crooks an' leeches an' prostitutes! That's 'onest — 
forty-nine of 'em ! Awnd uf ye get into one o' these crowds 
on Bath Street, a-watchin' the performers or a-'earin' the 
arguments, pick-pockets will be dippin' in yer pockets 
sure. . . . WuU, take a look to-morrow in the Citizen. 
Ye're sure to find some skilled jobs there — thot's the trouble. 
All skilled and no general labor wanted. Good night awnd 
good luck awnd a good job to ye!" 

Though it was getting late the crowds were still watching 
some boy acrobats on Bath Street and Bolshevism was 
being argued back and forth in groups where men massed 
around the disputants, pushing their best ears in as far as 
possible. 

^^ Propaganda — thot's it. They take the American offer 
for the ten thousand ton of rails here on oor streets, not to 
save thot thirty thousand poon' (pounds) but to scare oos 
workers into bein' more tractive like. Why couldn't they 
pay ten thousand poon' more uf 'twould pay oos workers — 
oos workers thot won the war!" 

^^More regularity in work it is as does it in America. 
It must be, for if they pay good wages, then they must 
plan to make as much profits in a year as here. Ah, they're 
cunning, these capitalists! Only they don't discharge 
10,000 men over there on a moment's notice like they do 
here." 

^^Why was there only one bid from all the Scotch awnd 
English companies oonless 'twas propoganda?" asks the 
other. 

^' Ah, but they'll all bid here for steel as soon as ever they 
have everything set — just as the Americans won't sell you 
certain things, like watches — I'm a watchmaker and I know 
— until they're ready. There's some reason — and besides, 
capitalists are bound together all over the world! Profit 
knows no patriotism, you know." 



^^WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?^' 129 

''But did na Germany in the heich o' the warr show thot 
communism canna be beaten ? By linkin' its labor and its 
nateral resoorces all together for the state it stood off the 
worrld!'' 

And so on, without end, and without any apparent 
arrival anywhere. The chief trouble was that in time 
nearly every argmnent was entered into by the same drunken 
fellow who wanted to be taken very seriously but did Uttle 
more than repeat — without any attention to his answerers 
— the same question with a drunken leer of cunning, as 
though he had cornered everybody. That done, he would 
perhaps denounce all the world's supply of capitaUsts in 
language of most frightful blasphemy and obscenity. At 
all times, the breaths of the whole crowd were terrible to 
suffer for the sake of one's ears. 

All of which seems to be an ordinary evening in Glasgow. 

I wonder if it's a cause or an effect — or only a symptom 
— of Glasgownian imrest. 

Glasgow 
Sunday night, 
August 8, 1920. 

^'That's where Glasgow blows off steam." 

A table companion has just now given that description 
of ''Glasgow Green," where I've been listening to more 
Radicahsm this afternoon than I heard in my whole seven 
months of job-searching in America. 

The meeting advertised was to promote the policy of the 
big national unions of Great Britain to "down tools" 
rather than fight with Russia or give the various wars on 
the Continent any help whatever. When I finally got my 
ear into the first big crowd, it was a great surprise to hear 
the speaker calling the Archbishop of Canterbury a Uar 
because he had said something unfriendly to betting on 
races. It gradually became evident that the speaker was 
trying to sell a racing sheet which he guaranteed infallible 



130 FULL UP AND FED UP 

in helping its readers to pick the winning horse. After lis- 
tening for some time to the next centre of a big crowd — 
after laboriously screwing myself into ear's length — the 
same discovery resulted. The third crowd was smaller; 
the speaker was making, within about twenty feet of dis- 
tance, the great jump from racing to religion! Finally I 
got into the huge crowd farther in by the Nelson Monu- 
ment — to learn from several speakers that ^'Socialism is the 
country's only hope!" that ^^ Russia is being fought by the 
Poles only because the desperate and frightened financial 
and capitalistic powers realize themselves in a death-grip 
with their mortal foe''; that ^'Bolshevism and Capitalism 
cannot live on the same globe" because '^ Bolshevism makes 
a demonstration of the power of the working men to get 
everything they want the moment they will practise the 
solidarity the war showed them to possess. This is the great 
crisis. Unity now will save the world from bloodshed — ^and 
help us to put into operation in all our chief cities the hu- 
mane and efficient regime of the Soviets." (Much applause 
and a multitudinous ''Hear! hear!") 

When they were all shouted out, the resolution as framed 
in London by the chief union heads was put — and from all 
appearances carried unanimously — incidentally, also, to the 
waving of the flag of the Irish Republic ! 

The highly respectable appearance and the oratorical 
ability of these speakers were quite surprising, as also of 
those who followed in the vehement urging of the Anti- 
Rent Increase Strike proposed for August 23 — to last only 
one day and to be followed by the withholding of any rent 
whatever until the landlord or his agent (called the factor) 
agrees not to take advantage of the government's permis- 
sion to increase his charges thirty-five or forty per cent over 
pre-war figures. 

The other outstanding feature of all the talks was the 
continuous appeal to the "working class." In that, how- 



^^WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?'^ 131 

ever, they are only following, so far as I can see, the lead of 
all the rest of the country. In newspapers that speak of 
the Report of the Cost of Wool something is sure to be said 
about ^^ yarns used in clothes made for the working class." 
Editorials seem to juggle the ^ forking classes" with ^^ mid- 
dle classes" and ^^ upper classes" continuously. Railways 
cause an awful howl when they say they want to stop ask- 
ing the middle classes to make up the deficit caused by 
enormous reductions given to the users of ^^ working class" 
tickets. (Just now they're raising their price and calling 
them ^^ Early Hour" trains!) 

^^Workin' clawss we are," my weary landlady there at 
the mines would say in explanation of her home's simplic- 
ity every time I set about for my ^^bathin' " in the kitchen. 
Everywhere, up and down and across and at all times, 
the current explanation, alibi, or appeal appears to be made 
in terms of class interests and differences. Certainly noth- 
ing could be put in more bitter words than the constant 
exhortation that the working class revenge itseU upon the 
"capitahstic class" as the planner and author of every evil 
perpetrated or imagined. 

'^The Kaiser whom we licked buys himself a castle. 
And you and I of the working classes that licked him, and 
put our bodies between him and Britain's homes — ^we have 
not where to lay our heads!" 

Of course, the Anti-Rent Increase Strike carried, with 
every hand in the air. 

"The widdies and orphans of the workers that fought 
in Flanders, how cawn they pay more rent the noo?" a 
young engineer asked me after he had said he was getting 
six pounds the week after twenty years of work with a very 
fair employer. ^^It's our government thot's betrayin' cos. 
It's lies and perjury they make of the fair promises they 
gi'n oos at the elections." 

He had no answer when asked why he felt so sure that 



132 FULL UP AND FED UP 

the people's elected representatives under Bolshevist or any 
other auspices would be any more reliable. 

^Trance should gang her ain gait — and we oors. Then 
Germany could walk in and do for them Frenchies/' a 
group of four or five apparently skilled mechanics were 
saying at one side — ^with amazingly calm cold-bloodedness. 

The sellers of every kind of Socialist, Bolshevist, sporting, 
and sensational paper were doing an enormous business as 
the crowd broke up — after following a group of Sinn Feiners 
about in the hope of some excitement. 

This evening — and this afternoon — I have been saying to 
myself: ^^Gaze on this picture, then on that,'' as I have re- 
called from last night what constituted, without doubt, the 
most depressing portrayal of humanity it has ever been my 
lot to see. 

Passing the numerous drunken men in the centre of the 
city and going into what is called the Cowcaddens district 
just before closing time at nine, I found the pubs crowded 
with women as well as men, most of them drinking large 
glasses of whiskey followed by beer. 

^^ She's a workin' woman, ye mind. Too bawd thot awld 
she is," answered a fat, blear-eyed woman who was crying 
drunkenly with her arm around a rather sweet-faced old 
lady whose combination of toothlessness and whiskey made 
her words about her daily job of scrubbing impossible to 
understand. One young woman with a very sweet face 
was with her husband, enjoying a final whiskey-beer as the 
bell commenced to ring for closing, while everybody surged 
up for the final order and the bartender and barmaids 
shouted and banged: ^^Time, gents, time! Pass along 
now!" 

Outside there seemed hardly a sober person of either sex 
on the crowded streets. Men and women lurched into the 
road and sang and swore and fell — ^while children seemed to 
take it all as a matter of course. Certainly they grow up 



^^WHAT^S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW ?'' 133 

in it, judging from the women stumbling their drunken way 
home with their babies in the nursing shawls, which here, 
as in South Wales, seem to be the all but universal badge 
of femininity from childhood up. To a father, at least, it is 
heartrending to see the dreadful number of wretched chil- 
dren with sadly bent or knock-kneed legs — caused, they 
say, by rickets, the ^^poverty disease." 

In the next block the wife and friends were able to pull a 
drunken young man away in time to prevent the threatened 
fight, but a little farther on two drunken fellows— one of 
them covered with blood and weeping copiously in the arms 
of his friend who had got a hard pummelling himself by 
both contestants in his role of attempted peacemaker — 
had to be separated by the police and sent along home in 
the arms of their less-drunken neighbors. 

By that time everybody was running down the street. 
For our exertions we were rewarded by seeing a man lean- 
ing out of the fourth-story window of the line of tenements, 
blowing vigorously on a police whistle. While the crowd 
grew dense, a policeman calmly waited until he was joined 
by two others — as though he knew altogether too much to 
go up alone. Shortly they came down, holding up between 
them the man, heavily bandaged about the head. ^' 'Twas 
his wife thot stabbed him," people whispered eagerly one 
to the other as the ambulance honked and clanged its way* 
through the jam. 

A little farther down I thought to give a kindly word to 
one of the filthiest hags I have ever seen, in the hope of 
learning how she accounted for herself and what particular 
idea or illusion happened to furnish her with the necessary 
modicum of self-respect. When face to face, it was amazing 
to note that in spite of her rags of filthy sacking under the 
greasy and disreputable shawl held about her by twine, 
and underneath the coarse black beard which marked the 
lines of her chin and jaw, she had really a strong face. She 



134 FULL UP AND FED UP 

looked at me keenly and with some fair degree of sobriety, 
though her breath bespoke whiskey. 

'^It's a gentleman of intelligence and education that's 
speakinV^ she said. She was evidently not looking for 
sympathy in the way I had assumed. The reason became 
evident — to my utter amazement — ^when she answered my 
question as to how she got along in the world. In words of 
dreadful obscenity, but in a manner much as a shipwright 
would assert his position above a casual dock laborer, she 
made clear her active standing, not as a common beggar, 
but as a daughter of Ishmael, the proud possessor of a 
trade, a self-supporting member of the demi-monde ! 

It required the utmost of self-control to stifle my gasp 
of horror. 

When I passed on to talk with a drunken Irishman who 
proudly showed me his wound ^^from Wipers and with the 
Black Watch, sir!'' she suddenly broke out with: ^^Ye're a 
spy! That's what ye are!" She was talking with others 
excitedly as I waved good-by to her and the soldier and 
strolled on to the nearest brawl. When it came to going 
up some of the alleys filled with loud-talking, or yelling, and 
very intoxicated groups of men and women, it seemed wise 
to turn up my coat collar, pull down my cap, and then to 
stagger — in order not to attract undue attention. 

Without exaggeration, the majority of people in the dis- 
trict appeared intoxicated, women as well as men. The 
dreadful language a man and woman were yelling at each 
other from different floors in one of the horrid tenements 
is rmging in my ears yet — along with some of the other 
frightful profanity of the streets. And in all places and at 
all hours, young girls laughing hilariously at the drunken 
wrecks of either sex, while under the feet of the crowd of 
every fight and every argument, run and squirm — and look 
and listen — the bareheaded, barefooted, bow-legged, or 
knock-kneed little children — till a chap some thousands of 




CHILDREN IN A CROWDED GLASGOW DISTRICT. 

The little mother in the centre with the "nursing shawl" and the baby could not 
keep from being surrounded by her friends. The number of Glasgow's children 
having the bent legs or otherwise deformed by rickets, the "poverty disease," is 
enough to make a lonesome father sick at heart. 







A SALOON OR "PUB" IN LONDON'S EAST END AS A "NEIGH- 
BORHOOD CENTRE " TO WHICH THE BABE IN ARMS 
IS BECOMING ACCUSTOMED EARLY. 



^'WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?'^ 135 

lonely miles away from his own youngsters has hard work 
to keep back his tears. 

In a near-by open square knots of men, as though on 
Bath Street, were arguing poUtics and economics. 

^'They be no arguments — 'tis naught but whiskey," said 
a pohceman. ^^ To-morrow with the pubs closed, 'twill be 
quiet enough." 

In my entire evening only one worker had said a sober 
v/ord to me. He looked like a careful man of some skill 
and thrift: 

^^Yes, I'm Irish, but I'd not like to work alongside one 
from there just now. In Belfast lately, in the shipyards, a 
friend was telling me, a new worker — from the South, he 
was — had on him a revolver with fifteen rounds o' ammyni- 
tion. Of course, they refused to work with 'im. . . . Yes, 
they're aye takin' on new min here, but ye must join a 
union to stay." 

At Bath Street, near midnight, the groups were just as 
hectic as before except that the drunken interruptions were 
much more frequent than earlier in the evening. 

**. . . great argument 
About it and about, but evermore came out 
By that same door wherein I went/' 

When I look on that picture and then on the revolution- 
ary festival of this afternoon, I keep wondering whether 
there is any connection between them and if so what it is 
— cause, effect, symptom, or what. Of this, at least, I am 
sure — Glasgow is certainly the most revolutionary and also 
the most ram-ridden and degraded city I ever yet have 
seen. 

Glasgow 

Tuesday, August 10, 1920. 

The talk to-day — in my regular character — ^with the shop 
steward and some workers from the biggest steel plant was 



136 FULL UP AND FED UP 

quite worth while. Here are some conclusions. How much 
they're worth, IVe no idea, but they are agreed to by the 
labor manager's assistant who used himself to be a union 
leader: 

^'The Clyde district is not actually as bad as it's painted. 
Neither are the big labor leaders; they exaggerate just as 
do the engineers when they ask eightpence an hour raise 
and know that all they hope to get is fourpence. 

^^It's SLJoh that everybody wants — a regular, steady job. 
When some of our ship ways were covered in so the men 
could work in all weather, trouble with them decreased by 
two-thirds. The various unions fight each other as bitterly 
as they do the employers — all for jobs. When work was 
scarce here after the armistice, engineers got to taking 
laborers' jobs — until the engineers' union was forced to 
stop it — or become the enemy of all the others. 

'^One of our supers here said lately: ^No, that's why I've 
not promoted him. It's harder to find a good worker now 
than a passable foreman!' Yes, sir, that's what he said! 
Of course, that discourages every worker — closes the door 
to promotion in his face, ye see. 

^^ Health insurance? Why, it's a tragedy! a popular 
doctor is chosen by thousands — too many for him to give 
them proper attention. He just gives them a look and 
writes out a fool prescription. 

''AH our whiskey troubles come from Sunday closing — 
men prepare for Sunday too well — and on bad whiskey, 
mainly imported from America! Prohibition? No fear! 
Why, liquor is the government's best milch-cow — gets 
nearly one million poimds from it — sixty-eight out of every 
seventy-nine shillings spent at the bar. Yes, sir, without 
rmn we'd certainly have revolution ! 

''During the war the pacifists here believed Germany 
would win. 'We better make the best terms possible with 
Jerry,' they said. So they struck — in spite of national 
union leaders that came to help the government to get them 



"WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?'' 137 

to work. Nine of the local agitators were sent away from 
here — probably a mistake. Now — with the H. C. L. as the 
chief irritant — one group is for collective bargaining on old 
union lines, while the younger — and, yes, the more numer- 
ous — ones are for constant irritation between men and 
masters as the definite means to social revolution. That's 
why the engineers near Sheffield are striking because a new 
foreman is not a member of their union. They know there's 
no sense to that but it helps make trouble. The masters 
do well to fight it." 

One of the men — ^he is a union head and also a member of 
the city council in a large British steel town — is a very- 
thoughtful, conservative chap. The other, from the local 
plant, is not very five or intelligent. A third, from the 
labor exchange, is a typical low-browed politician. 

To-night I hurried down to meet the two who called from 
the plant workers^ committee for a further talk — to find 
that they had gone because one of them, according to the 
porter, was intoxicated ! 

Yesterday the manager of the street railways — owned and 
operated by the city — said that most of the steel rails on 
Glasgow's streets had been rolled at Lorain, Ohio ! Also 
that he had asked twenty-five or thirty companies here and 
everywhere in England to bid for the recent ten-thousand- 
ton order and that only one British company had replied. 
It quoted a price of twenty-eight pounds with the provision 
that this would go up if the price of steel in England gen- 
erally was raised. An American company had offered a 
settled price of twenty-four pounds ten. Both his sub- 
committees of the council had agreed and the order had 
been given, and the rails are now being rolled at Lorain. 
Later a labor representative in the council made an objec- 
tion alleging bad pay and bad conditions in the American 
steel plants, referring particularly to the twelve-hour day, 
so now the council is withholding its 0. K. 

Although he does not seem to be worried about the out- 



138 FULL UP AND FED UP 

come and only wants the rails quickly, nevertheless it makes 
a very good example of the way this matter of labor rela- 
tions and conditions may enter into the whole affair of 
international business, for he did delay the order to the 
point of getting a disclaimer from the American agent at 
London, who, by the way, seems to have admitted that he 
knew almost nothing about hours, wages, and other work- 
ing conditions in the American plants. Naturally the man- 
ager was very glad to be saving something like $120,000 on 
the order. 

^^AU the British steel works are too busy to promise de- 
livery," a local steel man replied when asked the why of 
the solitary — and high — ^bid. 

With a chance friend from India I met on the train, it 
was interesting a few days ago to run onto the same old 
idea about the importance of the job in all stations. When 
we got well acquainted, he confided: 

''None of my family can understand why, with means 
enough to live on here or anywhere, I see no pleasure in life 
except doing such a piece of work as out there in northern 
India where I am superintending, just now, the opening up 
of some big hydroelectric enterprises for the government. 
They've been kind enough to give me four decorations for 
that and other things. Earlier in my training I worked 
two years in a Sheffield coal-mine, lying for the whole of 
the nine-hour day on my side in a two-foot seam. I guess 
I'm more of a sociaUst than an aristocrat. . . . Anyway, I'm 
very fond of the Indian people. Our trouble there has been 
that our job has been too well done. The civil-service ex- 
ams to go out there have put England's finest men into the 
work. They have labored splendidly and borne all the 
burdens — so much so that the Indians have gotten no idea 
of the difficulties involved and so have criticised us freely. 
The new plan now will let them in for their share of the job. 
Then when they criticise the government they will also be 



^^WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?'^ 139 

criticising their own blood brothers — besides finding the job 
harder than it looks/^ 

That seems to me quite worth noticing in the case of in- 
dustry. The average worker has no idea at all — especially 
here in England— of any problems connected with the man- 
agement. To him the ^^mawsters" appear mere loafers — 
lucky loafers. That's not strange at all, seeing that the 
managers have usually been just about as chary with their 
information as the ordinary foreman who feels that it is 
his ^^ know-how'' which gives him his job and therefore con- 
stitutes his capital. Without knowing anything about the 
difficulties of management the average worker has little 
enough desire to get into them; he is likely to have even less 
after he gets closer to them. He is, at any rate, sure to see 
that they mean worry as well as work. Most of all he is 
sure to be impressed with the surprising extent to which 
these problems are shot through with risk — the risk which 
usually goes with the direction of capital. These gains 
would certainly appear to make some form of representa- 
tive dealing desirable in the average factory. 

Hope to get away to-morrow to a cheap hotel or boarding- 
house where I can put on my old clothes as a more regular 
diet and, in a sense o' speakin', roll up my sleeves for the 
finding of that elusive job. 

Glasgow 
Thursday night 
August 12. 

It's queer how the last two days — since leaving good 
clothes — ^make it all feel like an entirely different town. 
Psychologically, surely, it is a very different one. 

Inside a great plant in a crowded, dirty factory district, 
the roar of the dripping furnaces and the clankety-rumble 
of the rolls made it seem more like home. The first chap I 
ran into proved to be a ^^dunmay." He pointed to his ears 
and then showed me his piece of chalk in his teeth, but, 



140 FULL UP AND FED UP 

because of our common experiences, we had a long con- 
versation about piece rates and time rates, etc., without 
needing anything more than signs. We pointed to our 
pockets for pay, to our watches for time, and went through 
a weighing motion with our hands for indicating tonnage. 
I understood him perfectly and had a lot of sympathy for 
him when I saw by the prodigious face he made that he was 
most unhappy to be himself on ^Hime'' when all the others 
rolling the great ship plates were on tonnage. Often enough 
I have felt the same way myself ! After he had made other 
similar remarks in the way of wiping imaginary sweat 
from his forehead for '^ registering" hard work and weari- 
ness, he did not seem to feel that I was properly appreciat- 
ing the bad faces he was making. So he cleaned off a piece 
of sheet steel lying on the floor and, with a hesitating 
scrawl, expressed himself by means of his chalk. From 
his face I could have guessed it; for, next to ^^FuU up!" it 
seems to be the most common expression over here — in 
fact, I'm sure it has a very great deal to do with the whole 
industrial situation following the war — in America as well 
as here: ^^F-e-d u-p!" he scribbled, with a fiendishly sour 
face! 

All the world seems fed up. It is probably because after 
the hard strain of the war we all thought it would be possi- 
ble to get back to normal life again and have a nice long 
rest. And just then the H. C. L. hit us with the unexpected 
load of additional hustle required in order to keep up and 
maintain our regular pre-war condition. The trouble is 
that this load came when the slightest weight fell upon ex- 
hausted nerves. It came at a time when, with our strength 
gone, the '^grasshopper became a burden." ''Fed up" — 
you hear it here at all times. It is not so much that the 
wear and tear is so heavy as that our margin of resistance 
is so thin and light. 

"It's all hand work here," said another worker as we 



'^WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?'^ 141 

watched the men wheeUng the big pieces of hot metal from 
the furnaces to the rolls or to the big hammer. I have a 
hole in my cap from one of the sparks that travelled forty- 
feet. ''Over at Beardmore's they have three times the ma- 
chinery and get more than that amount of tonnage and 
pay — with less sweat.'' 

In this same district a young boy, who had chosen the 
public-house bar as his life job, said that during the week 
people drank mostly beer, but on Saturday nights it was 
nearly all whiskies or whiskies with beer. 

''And on Friday afternoons — ^when the men get paid off 
and we have to serve them mainly whiskies before we close 
at two-thirty — then 'tis very hard to give them their wants 
and at the same time their proper change for the five poon' 
notes they all pays wi'." 

"Yell have to go to the docks or the shipyards yerselM 
We cawnt' help ye," the man at the Labor Exchange told 
me after I had given my story about my need of work. 
" Tis not like America, where ye can be given ony job if 
ye can 'andle ut. Hev ye got ony papers? . . • Wull, 
there ye are ! Try the gates, if ye like." 

But everywhere it has been a tale of men being laid off or 
going for weeks with little or no work, especially on the 
docks. 

"Lots o' them here," said a man who checks barrel- 
staves brought in from Canada for factories here, "never 
get more than a half week's work at most. But still they 
do na like work too regular. Awnd this way, too, they are 
very independent; if a gaffer is too braw or uses bad lan- 
guage, they leave him and go to another boat or dock — or 
report him to the union and he gets a letter ! . . . Whuskee 
and bad livin' conditions? Wull, there are mony here who 
live in these models and lose all respect for themselves; awnd 
they pay no taxes tho they have to go to the poor-house 
later and be supported by us other taxpayers. But whuskee 



142 FULL UP AND FED UP 

— ^wuU, I tell ^00, this American whuskee is fair poison. 
Not till I went to Canada did I ever have a head after 
whuskee. Thot it is thot makes so mony drunken ones 
here!'^ 

So America is to blame for last Saturday night ! 

A couple of young electricians at the table where we 
had a very dirty but cheap meal served by the dockers^ 
union were very happy in the long hours they got every 
so often — at 'Hime-and-a-half/' of course. As usual, they 
wanted to know the scale of wages and the price of board, 
clothes, laundry, movies, etc., in the States. 

^^The best job around here is gettin' a ^jump^ on one o' 
the boats. Six months oot and ye coom back wi' eighty 
poon' or so.'^ 

When, a few hours later, I asked about getting a "jump'' 
or vacancy on the liner getting ready to go to New York 
the fourth or fifth assistant engineer exploded: 

"No bloody chawnce! First ye moost have your union 
carrd. An' if there was one mon missin' when we cast off, 
there'd be enough others hereaboots to carry the ship over 
on their bloody shoulders ! There's jobs, yes, but too mony 
people for 'em!" 

After puzzling why this kind of opening for a livelihood 
should be called a "jump," a question brought an answer 
which makes it plain enough that it couldn't possibly be 
called anything else ! 

"If ye sign oop for the ship's crew, the place ye signed 
for is held for ye oop to the minute the ropes is cawst off. 
Then they calls oot, 'Two firemen!' or 'One deck-hand!' 
or perhaps, 'An oiler!' Wi' thot, ye joomps over onto the 
deck awnd if ye're the first to get there, the job's yours. 
But if 'twas ye thot signed oop and ye coom down after the 
'jumps' is taken, w'y, then ye're arrested for a deserter. 
Thot's the law." 

One glance down into the hold of a big freighter from 



^^WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?'' 143 

Canada showed that the men there were time-workers; 
they were sitting down lazily in the thousands of bushels of 
wheat or standing in them to their knees and languidly 
using big wooden shovels to push the grain down to where 
the endless chain of scoops caught it up and carried it out 
to a huge pile on the dock. With the air thick with flying 
chaff, the men, with their pants legs tied tight around their 
ankles by string to keep the wheat out of their shoes, and 
their mufflers tucked close around their necks, looked like 
the unhappy victims of some queer kind of snow-storm. 

A glance showed with equal plainness* that another 
group were working for pay by results. A more ambitious 
gang I've seldom seen. It was a sight to behold the way 
they shovelled the wheat into a small barrel, hoisted it onto 
the scales, emptied it and later another into a sack, and 
then lifted the sack onto the shoulders of a strong man 
who deftly dumped the two hundred pounds or so onto a 
waiting wagon. Everybody envied them for getting about 
two pounds ten apiece for every day they were able to get 
hold of such a job. 

It made such a good picture of combined skill, speed, 
sweat, sleight, and muscle — the day was so far gone that 
all chance of a job was gone — that I had to pull my camera 
from under my vest. Before I got away I had to promise 
to send them each a copy ! It looks as though we aU like 
to see ourselves in our working togs even more than when 
we're loafing, even though we're all diked out. (Unfor- 
tunately the picture was not a success.) 

Most of the dock laborers seem to take turns with their 
trucks in getting under the loads of pipe or lumber or flour 
that the hydraulic cranes swing up to them from the ship's 
hatches — with ordinarily a fairly good spell of loafing be- 
tween the turns. Why the contractor hires so many I 
don't know. Half of them would be enough. Two in the 
gang this afternoon were very drunk. 



144 FULL UP AND FED UP 

A labor member of the city council says this morning in 
the paper that in America he found the worker getting 
about fifty per cent better wages than here, housing im- 
mensely better, no labor politics — and whiskey everywhere 
as easy to get as coffee ! 

^'Absolutely no American whiskey supplied here/' a pub 
near the dock advertises ! 

On almost any corner at any time a man runs out an 
Anti-Rent Increase Strike meeting. Over fifty thousand 
strike posters are said to have been distributed for hanging 
in windows, with another sixty thousand now on the presses. 
''Don't Pay Your Rent!" they urge. 

"Glasgow had ten thousand houses condemned as unfit 
habitation before the war. They're all being lived in to- 
day. Houses that would have cost then 250 pounds will 
now cost 1,000 pounds. The interest alone will therefore 
make them rent at 60. The working class is 80 per cent of 
all, but they get only 43 per cent of the income of the coun- 
try. They can be more powerful than the government 
when they make up their minds to stick together. So I beg 
of you all to go together on strike on Monday, the 23rd !" 

And now to open up the window of my attic and try to 
get from my pillow a good pair of eyes and ears for to- 
morrow. 

Glasgow 
Sunday 
August 15th. 

Most of the educated people here seem to think that 
Glasgow does not deserve its reputation for extreme rad- 
icalism, but the last few days spent at the gates of the 
Clyde bank shipyards and the docks certainly show that a 
very large number of workers are very sore at things in |j 

general and at the ^'capitaUst class" in particular — very f j 
particular. 

A respectable-looking engineer of the better type there 



^^WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?'^ 145 

at the noon-hour loaf at one of the largest yards — ten thou- 
sand and more employees — gave me a shock day before 
yesterday. 

^'No trouble here — except that we should ha^ awsked fer 
a shillin' an 'our more instead o' a tuppence. And besides 
all strikes are wrong — ^yes, this rent strike, too!'' That 
looked as though there was at least one conservative! 
^^ What they should do/' he went on, ^4s to stick a dagger 

into the bellies of the bloody s that made the law with 

a note tellin' why ! . . . No, thot would na be wrong, nae 
mair wrong than shootin' a burglar. . . . Yes, and we build 
the ships here better thon in England — ^never do oor rivets 
loosen— and if Spain had only had the war-ships we've 
built here in this yard alone, it could ha' wiped oop America 
— thot mony there been! . . . Yes, Jinrniy Douglas, the 
foreman, he's your mon — ^ye'U find 'im over there when the 
whistle blows. A guid mon he is, too." 

^' Jimmy" and others of his kind were very considerate 
when I asked for a reamer's job — driller's, they call it here 
— at several yards along the river Friday and down at 
Greenoch yesterday— twenty miles down. 

^'Materials is short— ^and they've laid off six hundred oop 
at So and So's. But 'tis mainly propaganda — tryin' to 
break doon oor wages,'^ is the word generally given by the 
men when you talk with them at the noon-hour as they 
stroll up to hear the Irish-Scotchman who barks out Uke a 
wild dog to a few hundred of them that ^^ Scottish troops 
are in readiness to murder the Irish race," and ^^The next 
great war will be with America." *^ Scottish workers must 
start a general strike now and prevent a civil war and a 
world war," 

Perhaps it is because at home men have become over- 
fearful of using strong language, while here they let them 
blow off steam at any and all places — at any rate, the whole 
effect is certainly to make it seem like a highly unrestful 



146 FULL UP AND FED UP 

place, especially seeing all the elaborate plans that are go- 
ing forward for a big demonstration against the landlords 
on the 23rd. From most of the workers I have seen have 
come amazingly bitter words about the law, considering 
that the landlords were not allowed to raise rents during 
the war. There are fewer workers at the factory gates than 
at home, but the line is usually a fairly long one filing up to 
the counter in the Labor Exchanges to be certified as out of 
work for the day. Several times I have waited long in the 
biggest line, or ^^ queue," supposing that it was, of course, 
jobs they were after — to find later that for a job I had to 
go over to the solitary clerk in the corner with the small 
group around him! Likely enough he would not know 
without consulting a book somewhere, such a fact as the 
current rate for '^general labor'' or ^^drillers,'' etc. Of the 
big plants only the one first mentioned seems to have any 
arrangements for hiring other than giving a chance to see 
the foreman of the particular department. This is itself a 
diflScult job; he is ordinarily seeable only at certain definite 
moments before and after the shift goes on — and those mo- 
ments are the same at practically all plants. The result is, 
as it is in America, a man can make only one guess for a 
morning or afternoon. That does not seem to work as 
much hardship for the worker here as in America, mainly 
because fewer men are fired or leave, and so fewer are to be 
hired. 

With some of the timekeepers and other minor ofiicials 
it has been possible to edge into a conversation appropri- 
ate to the tongue and ears of a man who ^^was gettin' along 
all right in the States and thought I'd have a bit of a holi- 
day and work my passage over and am runnin' short of 
money, d' ye see?" 

^^Yes, the piece-workers give a fair day, but the time 
men, like those laborers there or those painters, well, they 
just loaf. They don't deserve the name of workjuen at all 



^^ WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?'^ 147 

To pass the time somehow they just idle and argue by the 
hour. And the way they can tell by intuition when a 
gaffer's about ! They fair smell him ! And when he comes 
around they're so busy that he thanks God that there's 
such noble workers in the British Isles I Yes, they and their 
unions are goin' too far!" 

From the newspapers it seems that everybody — except 
the local workers — is aghast at the Council of Action which 
the national union heads have put up for enforcing labor's 
will upon Parliament — indeed, for supplanting Parliament. 
^^Down tools, every worker, before any war with Russia!" 
The workers whom I see seem to think it all the right idea 
exactly, though it must be said that many of them don't 
understand it — except that it's against the government — 
that is, the particular ruling party which they hate. Most 
of the reading of newspapers, by the way, appears to be 
confined to the sheets which give, every noon, the advice 
for picking the winners in the afternoon races — those and 
the cheap novels buyable in almost every business block. ; 

^^Most o' those chaps do nae work but soomhoow they 
ha' a shilhn' or a saxpence for the bookies every Saturday 
awfternoon, onyhoow," a laborer explained on the benches 
in the main square of Paisley, after I had taken a look at 
the two huge and famous thread mills there. All the idlers 
were busy with their newspapers — and then with scrawling 
out the name of their choice! ^^Hoow it cooms thot ma- 
terials be slack wi' stuff a-cooming frae America I do-unt 
know — though I do know thot some o' these gaffers would 
coot yer throat f er a hapenny . . . . Awnd ye hae nae trade ? 
. . . WuU, now, thot's bawd. I hae doot o' yer findin' 
worrk." 

The ^^ definite threat and challenge to the Constitution," 
such as the Council of Action is called — besides its other 
names of the ^'Council of Distraction" and the '^ London 
Soviet "—is not likely to sit very heavily on the minds of such 



148 FULL UP AND FED UP 

workers. The craftsmen of a better sort are not so easy to 
come into contact with; they are the ones, I presume, whose 
level-headedness is counted upon, as usual, to save the coun- 
try from the extremists. But at least it would look as though 
these last are very numerous. Also that the group of those 
who are too far down the ladder of decency and self-respect 
to care what happens and who, therefore, constitute a sort 
of balance of power — evil power — in a crisis, is beyond all 
peradventure amazingly large here. Whether it is mainly 
Irish, as some say, I can't tell. This crowd it is that comes 
into its own on Friday afternoons and Saturday nights. 

Last night a poUceman in Cowcaddens exploded with his 
'^There's a doozen districts — and more — joost as bawd!'' 
when asked if I had already seen the worst on my adven- 
tures of a week ago. He certainly was right — at least to 
the extent of the four or five different districts I proceeded 
to visit in line with his directions. 

It's not worth while trying to describe the various scenes, 
other than to say that the whole city, more or less, seemed 
to be trying to go Cowcaddens one better. Everywhere — 
even in the very centre of the city — it was a mass of stag- 
gering, singing, swearing, laughing men and women and 
boys and girls interspersed with men with puff-adder necks 
• — playing bagpipes or flutes or kneading accordians for the 
coppers of the passers-by, or standing in the middle of the 
road singing with all their drunken might and bloated 
pride. As you walk — especially in the less-lighted sections 
— it is necessary to watch carefully to keep from stepping 
into the vomitings of the earlier home goers ! On the car 
you pass this man or woman reeling along or see this man 
making overpolite bows while the young lady edges away 
— or laughs at him mockingly — while other bolder and more 
fortunate Don Juans wrestle with their sweethearts in what 
looks like a cross between caressing and boxing. When the 
man in the seat behind you leans forward and puts his head 



'^ WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?'' 149 

onto your back, you think of the sUppery sidewalks and of 
the scarcity of your coats — and change your seat hur- 
riedly! Whereupon you attract the attention of a well- 
dressed and keen-faced ^^ artisan" who draws himself up in 
the inebriated certainty of his splendid — though befuddled 
— mentality, and his expressive, though unruly, tongue, and 
asks you with great solemnity: 

^'W'y do we 'awve a bloody parasite like the King? A 
bleedin' loafer 'e is ! 'Tis the capitaUsts thot own us workin^ 

clawss like slaves — but they do nae feed oos. The ! ! '^ 

. . . [Here the young ladies are forced to go out.] '^But, 
God lumme, 'twas Bobbie Burns thot hae soong, 'A mon's 
a mon for a' thot!' " 

^'When my turn cooms fer Saturday night 'tis fed up I 
get wi' all this," says the serious and hard-working — and 
fairly pretty — girl conductor who has held onto her job 
since war days. 

WTien you get home and go up to your attic you hear 
cries, shouts, and screams coming from a near-by slum — 
for I'm Uving in Cowcaddens — and as you go to sleep you 
wonder whether the sharp staccato of the clanging bell 
means the arrival of the ambulance or the undertaker's 
wagon ! 

All that makes it disheartening to go to the Green this 
afternoon and find that the big crowd you hoped was the 
advertised prohibition or no-license meeting proves to be 
the usual Hibernian protest ! Later, the few who do come 
to the meeting of the Prohibitionists hear some very diflFer- 
ent speeches. Everywhere it is said that the churches take 
little interest in local option, partly because many priests 
and pastors have taken the reconamendations of the pub- 
licans — brewers and distillers — in their congregations to 
get large incomes on their brewery or distillery investments. 
It appears pretty certain — in line with the claims of the 
speakers — that many pastors and others are unwilling to 



150 FULL UP AND FED UP 

risk offending their influential friends by signing the pe- 
tition for a vote. All sorts of educated people here — and 
also in Wales — seem to believe that the government gets 
too much revenue out of ^Hhe trade/' to be able to run 
without it — and everybody, apparently, has the idea that 
alcohol is a food. ^^ Drink two quarts of good beer every 
day for a year and besides maintaining your health you 
contribute twenty-five pounds to your government'' — not 
to mention another thirty to the brewers in a country that 
strikes against the raising of rents, most of which are much 
less than twenty or twenty-five pounds a year. 

Am hoping for an early chance at a few foremen to-morrow 
and, with good luck, a pneumatic drill in my hand and a 
lot of Scotch burrs on interesting subjects in my ears ! 

Glasgow, 

Tuesday, August 17th. 

Last night at 10.45 in the big dockyard the prospect 
was good for a job rustUng freight. According to my 
docker pals of the day, it was easy for even an ^^unbadged" 
or non-union man to find work on the night shift when 
boats happened to be working, as they would be. ^^Joost 
be there before the shift goes on at eleven !" But my heart 
soon sank as I saw a score and more of quiet figures leaning 
against the gaffer's shanty in^ the shadows. When a long 
half-hour dragged by in silence — ^men never seem to talk 
much when this question of job or no job is in suspense — 
and a number had come up jobless from the other boat, the 
only proper thing seemed to be to give it up, though a few 
did stick around against hope. 

'^ Ye cawn never tell thot, Jock !" one of the silent shadows 
said in surprise when I asked what chance there would be. 

^'It's mebbe a fortnight and nae work fer an oor and then 
long oors and extra pay fer a fortnight," several others had 
said that morning, some in anger and others not. It is 



^^WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?^' 151 

said that the union has so far refused to enter into a pro- 
posed arrangement whereby all the docks would get work- 
ers through a central clearing station each day as the ships 
arrived. At this central station all the workers would wait 
until 'phoned for. The reason for the opposition is that 
the worker at the metal dock does not want to take the 
chance of being called to work at a wheat dock, for instance, 
and then perhaps miss his chance at a metal cargo when it 
comes in shortly after. He is sure of his ability to earn high 
with his skill in handling metal but is not certain how much 
he can earn with other cargoes. Now, however, that the 
dockers are to come under the unemployment insurance, 
something of the sort will, without doubt, have to be worked 
out, 

^'It's awl accordin' to the 'orses,'' was the surprising 
answer from one of the men in a gang working like mad — 
on piece rates, of course — ^weighing the wheat, sliding it 
down the chutes onto wagons which took it out to the tracks 
and then carrying it on their shoulders with quick steps 
from the wagons up steep planks onto the railway cars or 
'Hrucks." Of course, when the indispensable horses and 
their wagons did not come in quick succession, the whole 
operation stopped and all the men lost their chance at their 
possible maximum of fifty shillings or more for the turn. 

If paid in exact proportion to the energy they expend as 
compared with the regular — and exceedingly leisurely — 
sixteen-shillings-a-turn day workers these sweating hustlers 
should get even more ! 

^^Ye cawn see the gaffer this noon,'' was all the satisfac- 
tion I could get at the entrance of a big shipyard yester- 
day morning early. As I loafed about, debating what to do, 
a number of boys came running down the street and dashed 
through the gate. It certainly looked as though they had 
been late for the whistle and were very anxious to get to 
their tools and hard at the job. But the guard had evi- 



152 FULL UP AND FED UP 

dently seen the trick before. To my amazement, he caught 
them by the collar, one by one, and pushed them out into 
the gang of us as impostors! They were only trying to 
break through to a gaffer in working hours in the hope of 
being ''set on." At noon the gaffer held a sort of office 
into which we all went one by one — after we had hiked up 
our coats, put our hats on more firmly, straightened up our 
shoulders and, finally, with a full head of courage, walked 
boldly in to him to ask: ''Wot about a chawnce, sir?'' All 
in vain! He turned us all down with his: "Full up! Full 
up! Full up, I tell you!'' 

"Over in France 'twas, 'We'll take care o' ye' — and not 

a job the noow! Look ut these girls here! Awfter 

oor jobs, they are! Uf they're widows, righto. Uf not — 
oot wi' um! Every one — every widow, ye oonderstand — 
should hae a band on her arm to show. Awnd these Sinn 
Feiners — why dinna they go hoom to help their coose? 
They coom here by boatloads, d' ye ken, when we was fight- 
in' — awnd when they refused conscription — awnd they hae 
oor jobs the noow! Awnd here they talk and talk. But 
go hoom foor their coose, they will na!" That was the 
kind of remark passed around when one by one we had 
come out from the little office loaded — and unhappy — ^with 
our individual portions of the universal "Full up!" 

"This government — 'tis all ut's fault. Dynamite! 

I gi' ut to ye in a nutshell — we should blow oop the House o' 
Parlyment. . . . Av coorse they're afraid on us — that we 
woo-od massacrate um! Awnd thot we shoo-od!" 

With an intelligent but long jobless and much worried 
young electrician — recently married — I went over to the 
docks to find "if mebbe, I can get back home on a ship." 
The engineer of the American boat we tackled has evi- 
dently suffered: 

'^No^ not on your life! Every bunk's full — stokers and 
all. And anyway, I wouldn't take you unless the Consul 



'^WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?'' 153 

here could tell me all about you. I'm sick of this way you 
young American fellows are coming over here, getting 
drunk, disgracing your country and your flag, leaving your 
ship's officers in the lurch — and then coming like this to 
some other ship with a hard-luck story. You oughta be 
ashamed of yourself ! Nothing doing !" 

I slunk away in disgrace. It's easy to imagine that he's 
not happy about prohibition. It certainly is hard to keep 
our attitudes and opinions from being the reverse side of 
the current coin of our experience from day to day. As 
with him, so with a companion on the tram this afternoon 
who broke into the argument several of us started: 

^^Let me tell you why I nae cawn eat this frozen meat 
they try to bring frae America to make oor livin' less dear. 
When I was a lad I was a farm servant. We had none o' 
all this goovernment inspection thot makes all so costly. 
Oor mawster — a gentleman farmer he was — never had a 
sheep die o' ony disease but he coots its throat and sticks 
it into the brime (brine) foor oos servants. It made ye 
sick once — and then ye never ate it again — but bread and 
taties instead. So I'm afeard o' ony but fresh meat the 
noow." 

When we came to the bridge a great crowd was at the 
railing watching some men in boats. They were dragging 
the bottom for the bodies of two suicides of the night before. 

^'There's George now!" a fine-looking young fellow said 
— he had eariier wanted me, if ever I should see him, to 
thank Captain St. John, an American physician, for saving 
his life by his new treatment for mustard-gas victims. ^^ Why, 
George is the Humane Society man. His life job has been 
keeping the boats and grappling-irons for finding bodies 
at this place. 'Tis a great place for suicides. He's wonder- 
ful at finding them, too — almost by instinct ! It often seems 
as though he could smell a body ! Of course, he's been at 
it all his life. You $ee Ms father had the same job before him,^^ 



154 FULL UP AND FED UP 

Somehow it's hard to hke — or '^fawncy/' as we Welsh 
would say — a town that keeps two generations busy on a 
job Uke that within a hundred yards of its main corner! 
But it's not surprising that George comes in to add himself 
to the other three chaps IVe been rubbing shoulders with 
— ^riun, revolution, and the one and two room homes. It 
should be added, also, that there are over 500 cases of 
small-pox going around right in our midst — ^mostly in such 
districts as Cowcaddens ! 

^^ Isn't that a pretty dish to set before the King!" 

I wonder what he thinks — or knows — about it, by the 
way. 

A day or two more will about do. 

Glasgow, 

Thursday night, August 19th. 

Well, it looks like things were getting a little plainer. 

For one thing, the bailie, or town councillor, who has 
just returned from America, did my heart good by telling 
one of his fellow Socialist town councillors — I was calling 
on them both there at the city hall: 

'^Why, there's no doubt at all but they've got a standard 
of living over there in America not less than fifty per cent 
higher than our workers here — with wages not less than 
seventy-five per cent higher. And every decent worker with 
not less than four to six rooms in a detached house with a 
porch and all — and nice streets to walk down, with grass 
along the curb I Maybe shade trees in the middle arching 
over ! And a motor-car sitting out in front or in the back 
yard ! Why, my God, when I tell them about it here, my 
friends think I'm romancing! And here we are with 40,- 
000 families in one-room apartments — that's 120,000 peo- 
ple! And 600,000 people in not more than two-room 
homes ! And nobody in town with a porch — and our upper 
middle class less well off in all ways than their working 



^^WHAT^S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?'' 155 

men, so far as I saw them. . . . Why, once we had a Social- 
ist choir of girls here. They took the national prize one 
year. The next year they lost. 'Twas because they 
couldn't sing a song about a forest as well as some chil- 
dren could that came from the Highlands ! Why, the poor 
things had never seen a forest! I suppose they thought 
maybe it was some kind of a 'close' (tenement stairway 
passage)." 

His friend was pretty surely telling about one of the re- 
sults of all this when as one of the heads of the Labor Party 
here he explained later: 

''We SociaHsts think the Soviet is nothing but the nat- 
ural result of the average individual citizen becoming 
more intelUgent as the result of years of democracy — and 
so having to give less authority to the state or centralized 
government. In some modified form that's quite likely to 
follow from the work we do in selling as many as 5,000 
copies of a new history of the Scottish labor movement, 
even before it is printed — all to our SociaUst working-men 
customers — the men who live under these bad conditions. 
With such men who make up our constituency now we 
don't discuss Sociahst principles any more; we just teach 
and train them in the technical side of the practical pro- 
gramme of Socialism for making these conditions fairer and 
better for the masses. Some of the converts we send into 
the unions to be leaders there, others into poUtics — all ac- 
cording to their talents after these have been carefully 
studied by us. Others we put into the co-operative move- 
ment. That movement sells now to as many as half of 
the families of Glasgow. It's all under the management of 
six men elected by the city's shoemakers, plumbers, steel 
workers, etc. We think we have to do all that, you see, 
because the central government — the one that heads up in 
Edinburgh and London — ^withholds big grants to educa- 
tion in Glasgow unless we use their books and courses and 



156 FULL UP AND FED UP 

these tell them that every boy has a chance to be an Andrew 
Carnegie and that the affair of 1776 was a sort of Bolshe- 
vik uprising. Then, too, they withhold grants to our police 
unless they can control them/' 

Much additional light came also from attending a meet- 
ing of the Glasgow Trades Council last night. It was a 
highly representative and thoroughly orderly affair, with 
some very intelligent men in attendance, including the two 
or three who reported progress for the strike of the local 
musicians. All the representatives of the city's 350 locals 
of the various labor unions and of twenty-one branches of 
the Independent Labor Party listened with great interest to 
the ^^ brother and comrade" who came from North Ireland 
to solicit funds for the striking linen workers. All appeared 
very generally in favor, too, of making a great success of 
the plans for the general strike on the next Monday. ^' And, 
mind, the procession will move whether we're given per- 
mission by the city or no!" The business was conducted 
with most exemplary expedition and decorum. Here as 
well as at home the average union member can give the 
average citizen points on parliamentary procedure and 
then beat him to a frazzle ! But it was perfectly evident 
that the Conservatives who were in attendance had Uttle 
show and less courage. The report of the official who had 
just been up to London and in touch with the national 
leaders was given cheers when he stated that in his opinion 
''Mr. J. Facing-both-ways Thomas" had been finally 
brought down off the fence and could now be counted among 
the radicals. So, after duly extended and enthusiastic com- 
ment on the fact that labor had never in the history of the 
movement been so united as now in its fight against war, 
the crowd took appropriate steps in full preparation for 
enforcing the proposed nation-wide general strike and for 
setting up the Glasgow Soviet to act on the orders of the 
National Council of Action the instant the government 



^^ WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW ?'' 157 

should make bold to begin war with Russia in defiance of 
the wishes of British labor. What opposition there was to 
this was effectually overcome by the contention that tech- 
nically the plan was a purely emergency measure and would 
give way to ordinary governmental and unionistic institu- 
tions shortly after the country had been properly paralyzed, 
the war made impossible, and the decisive power of the 
worker fully demonstrated. In the same breath, however, 
the radicals, while granting the point technically, gave 
plenty of evidence that in their opinion, ordinary govern- 
ment wouldn't get a show in a long time, if ever again, once 
the National Council and the local labor groups were in the 
saddle. 

One of the more conservative men in the meeting proved 
to be with the Workmen's Educational Alliance, which 
tries to bring to the workers all over the country the teach- 
ings of ordinary economics and other subjects at the hands 
of very good instructors. One of the meeting's more rad- 
ical leaders is with the Labor College, a similarly national 
enterprise for working-man instruction but more in the 
sense of class propaganda than education, since it is devoted 
to the spread of the Marxian doctrine of inevitable class 
conflict. This latter school here enrolls about one thousand 
students. In very friendly relation with it is the barking 
haranguer of factory crowds heard the other day at the 
shipyard's gate — he's called the '^Sinn Fein Consul to 
Glasgow." He certainly supports the claim of those who 
say that the Irish are at the bottom of much of the trouble 
here. He was with the Labor College secretary when I 
called: 

''If England doesn't recognize the Irish Republic soon, 
then we have our biggest card still to play. That's war be- 
tween Britain and America ! We have the whole programme 
laid out — with all the sore points ready to our hands. 
'Twill be the thing to put the British lion on his back — 



158 FULL UP AND FED UP 

and, of course, 'twill wreck America, too. But 'twill bring 
the freedom of Ireland. And it's next on the programme !" 

It was hard work to keep from striking him ! I'm sorry 
now that I felt it necessary to leave in order to hang onto a 
proper control of hands and tongue. The cold-blooded 
fiendishness of the plan of the man — and, evidently, of his 
friends — equals or excels anything the Germans were able 
to imagine. Naturally, it makes a man wonder if a large 
part of it should not bear the ^^Made in Germany" label. 
Certainly no plan could possibly bring greater satisfaction 
to the enemies of Britain, whether in Ireland, Germany, or 
Russia. Certainly, too, each day's transpirings appear 
more and more to one over here to represent not so much a 
war for Ireland as a general and all but world-wide campaign 
against the British Empire. 

But, without doubt, also, men could easily be instigated 
to most anything if they must live among the thousands 
who rent those dreadful one-room apartments such as I 
visited. In one of them I saw a woman preparing a meal 
on the combined kitchen, dining-room, and parlor table. 
The husband lay on a high bed and was cursing everybody 
from the landlord up. The bed was quite high — so as to 
give a place underneath for the children to stand up before 
they went to sleep on the floor! There were no clothes 
or baggage of any kind in sight. A broken toilet served 
three families; a single tiny faucet, or tap, and sink out 
on the stairs between floors had to serve six families ! All 
the washing of the three families hangs out in the passage- 
way or ''close," because there is no outdoor portico of any 
kind — ^nothing but the squalor of a stone building nearly 
a hundred years old. All at ''nine bob" a week — or, ordi- 
narily, ten dollars a month ! If it couldn't be guaranteed to 
drive a man — or a woman — to drink, I don't know what 
could ! As a matter of fact the death-rate of these places 
is reported as almost exactly twice that in roomier and newer 



^'WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?^' 159 

quarters! The citizen nods about their badness but adds 
that we ought to have seen what the city could have shown 
before the health department got busy a few decades ago ! 
The result of all so far seen and heard would look about 
like this — subject to further seeings and hearings later on: 

1. Nothing — neither higher wages, continuously suc- 
cessful municipal operation of the tramways and various 
other enterprises of which the Socialist councillors like to 
boast, nor even better treatment of the workers at the fac- 
tories by means of shop committees or councils — nothing 
will avail to make Glasgow peaceful, prosperous, and happy 
as long as the housing conditions are as bad as they are. 
Nor as long — and of the two this is much the more impor- 
tant — nor as long as so large a proportion of the city's 
workers suffer from the unsteadiness of the job for which 
both shipbuilding and docking are noted. The whole place 
is suffering from a hard and chronic case of the intermit- 
tent chills and fever of job-and-no-job, comphcated by the 
'^Tiredness and Temper'' bred in the darkness of those 
aged one and two room tenements. 

2. It is inconceivable that prohibition could ever be 
made effective so long as these two underlying conditions 
obtain. Nor until, also, a long educational campaign has 
been gone into. (The connection between such bad con- 
ditions and John Barleycorn was pointed out by one of 
my near-down-and-out companions in the neighborhood of 
some bad lumber camps: ^^The drunker ye be the less ye' 11 
be a-mindin' of the flies and bugs. And when ye sober up, 
ye're used to 'em. See?") 

3. The local ^^ Captains of Industry" will be disappointed 
with the results of their embryo ^^ welfare" enterprises — 
and probably, as a result, very sore with their workers — 
until they can help the city to improve the housing con- 
ditions and regularize, at least to a corsiderable extent, the 
Clyde bank's jobs. 



160 FULL UP AND FED UP 

4. A considerable part of the planning of the leaders of 
the national unions and the Council of Action, as well as of 
the local Anti-Rent Strike is definitely political. ^^If our 
present unity can be maintained . . . the Labor Party 
will come into power/' says one of the ^^ London Soviet'' 
leaders. ^^A successful strike here next Monday should 
elect several more Socialist city councilmen," says one of 
the officials of the Glasgow Trades Council. 

5. In my opinion America is most fortunate in Mr. 
Gompers's unfriendliness to the organization of a labor 
party. Certainly the American worker without it is much 
better off than the British worker with it. But ^'Sam" 
may change his view if he comes to believe that American 
employers are organizing to break up his organization in- 
dustrially. Then we shall probably be in for such con- 
stant and acute uproar as they have here. As here, the 
workers will fight now with the strike and other industrial 
weapons to gain political ends and then, the next day, use 
political weapons to gain industrial ends. 

6. As explained by a very intelligent young woman con- 
nected with a social-service enterprise and a leader among 
the Socialists, such demonstrations as that planned for 
Monday furnish the only way of getting any kind of ac- 
tion out of the city's submerged thousands. ^^You see, 
they are too drunken and ignorant — too propertyless and 
hopeless — to understand us when we try to tell them the 
causes of their misery — or to care to make any effort to- 
ward their own betterment. But if we can get them to 
take action in the form of a one-day strike, then that makes 
it easier to get them to vote, a few weeks later, to do away 
with the system which permits their degradation." 

According to that, any wise group of citizens or owners 
in any state or city anxious to make the established order 
of society work successfully, should try even to jorce upon 
its submerged thousands the enjoyment of such practical 



r 



WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW ?'' 161 



properties as steady jobs, decent homes, maximum oppor- 
tunities, and other things worth conserving. Such citizens 
could be pretty sure that such conservings would not fail 
to make their possessors conserve. 

7. Just how it comes about that the chief centre of a 
country noted for its religious scruples and its sectarian 
grit and backbone should also be famous for its degrada- 
tion and radicalism is open to anybody's guess. My own 
is that the situation is much the same as in some of the 
Pennsylvania steel towns where the good Scotch Presby- 
terians get quite ^^het up'' over Sunday movies but trouble 
apparently very little over twelve, eighteen, and twenty- 
four hour shifts for the population's thousands. But, after 
all, I suppose most of us had better go easy with the casting 
of the first stone, considering how slow we have all been to 
see the close connection between men's bodies, their daily 
job, and not only their daily bread but also their daily 
doings, dreamings, and dogmatizings. 



Hope to make Edinburgh to-night and to-morrow begin 
in Middlesbrough another episode. 

Middlesbrough, Newcastle District, 
Sunday, August 22nd. 

'Ted up!'^ Those were the words in my mouth — and ' 
mind and body — this morning on getting out of bed after 
the usual '^morning exercises" (highly reconamended for 
eye and hand) of hunting fleas and other beasties. In spite 
of my momentary elation following the complete success 
of a very speedy and well-executed ^^ enveloping movement" 
on Mr. Flea, ^Ted up" certainly described my state of 
mind as I contemplated the very dirty and much torn sheets 
and pillow-cases, the ancient and abbreviated hand-towel 
left by the last '^ guest," and the broken window-panes 



162 FULL UP AND FED UP 

scattered in pieces on the floor, with the weather cold enough 
for snow ! 

When I asked about fresh sheets last night, the maid an- 
swered: ^^Oh, we never take only respectable people, so 
it's quite all right.'' Later a huge South African negro 
laborer proved to be one of the boarders in good standing. 

Even at that the boarding-house is a lot better than the 
one to which a policeman took me in the rain last evening — 
where a bed could be had for two shillings, in the same small 
room with seven very tough-looki^g white and black, Eng- 
lish and foreign, ship and steel workers. As a matter of 
fact, this seems the best in the town that will permit the 
kind of clothes necessary for covering the groimd getting 
the contacts desired. As it is, and in spite of my tough 
appearance, a boiler-maker — a rough and low type of 
fellow he certainly was — nearly spotted me last night in 
a pub. 

^'If Hi wuz you, Hi'd walk right in ter see the fountain- 
'ead o' these steel works 'ere, and sye, ^Hi wants ter see the 
manager!' — just like thot," he counselled when we first 
started talking. ^^With wot ye've done in Hamerica, ye'll 
get on fine 'ere." 

We got along well together, though he seemed to have 
trouble to place me. Finally he explained: 

^'Now ye asked me a w'ile back ter 'ave a pint with yer, 
didn't ye? — yuss — and I said ^No,' didn't I? — yus — ^wuU, 
thot wor becuz Hi wuz considerin'. Yer see. Hi alius mikes 
it a rule never ter 'ave a pint with a stringe mon right off 
like without considerin'. WuU . . . wuU . . . wuU, now Hi've 
considered ! 'Ere, miss, tike our order ! Yuss, a pint o' 
bitters awnd 'arf a pint o' mild ! Thot's it. WuU, cheerio ! 
Awnd a good plice fer ye on Monday !" 

Then, to return courtesies he called his friend: '^'Ere, 
Bill ! 'Ere's a young feller from Hamerica and 'e's tellin' 
me — now wuzn't yer tellin' me? Didn't Hi sye ter ye — a 



'^WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?'' 163 

moment ago, like. . . . Wuzn't yer tellin' me? ..." and 
his tongue drifted off the job along with his unsteady- 
eye. 

^'WuU, wuU, come on, come on! Wot wuz it yer wuz 
a-syin' to 'im? Come on now! Carry on!" urged his 
friend, but to no purpose. 

Just as I had begun to think my newest chum was too 
far gone to give further information on the state of the 
town's jobs and conditions, or to introduce me to more of 
his companions, drunk or sober, he seemed suddenly to get 
hold of himself. Perhaps he was awakened by the sub- 
conscious bell of alarm and danger sounded by some sixth 
sense which, whether the threat is against our body or our 
spirit, seems almost never to go quite to sleep at the gen- 
eral high headquarters of the soul of any of us. 

^^WuU, se 'ere!" he brought up with amazingly sudden 
steadiness and seriousness. ^^Yer mye be from Hamerica 
— I don't know — but Hi do know as ye appear ter me like 
some'at more'n a poor workin' man like meself. Thot ye 
do, in God's truth! Now, ye'll not misunderstawnd me" 
(business of grasping my hand and transfixing me with a 
serious but somewhat wavering eye so as to soften the con- 
templated thrust); ^^ ye'll not misunderstawnd me, mind, 
but yer heye and all — ^wuU, I've seen gentlemen — ^yuss, 
several times — tho it's mostly me pals. Bill and the big 'un 
there. But — wull, now, tell me, as mon ter mon, eyenH yer 
pullin^ me leg? ^^ 

It took a good deal of talking, but finally he was fairly 
satisfied and when we parted at the sound of the closing 
bell and the call of: ^^Time, gents, time! Move along, 
now! Move along!" he called back quite pleasantly his: 
^^ Righto ! Hi'U see yer 'ere Monday night !" 

So, with such a warning as that, I'm glad to be in a place 
that will permit sinking a point or two lower in the scale 
of soiled shirt, dirty soft collar or muffler, and unshaved 



164 FULL UP AND FED UP 

face now that the search for jobs or at least for confiding 
acquaintances begins to-morrow morning. 

So far he's the only one — except the hag in Glasgow. So 
the wonder still remains that people are so quick to accept 
me at the near-bottom valuation proclaimed by face and 
cap and clothes. A wife last night, for instance, in an 
amusement parlor became perfectly friendly the moment I 
gave a word and a smile to her beshawled and sickly little 
baby. 

^^ Number twelve she is — awnd bright! Wy^ w'en 'er 
fawther comes 'ome at midnight, mebbe — 'e's a ^slinger^ — 
that is, wuU, if yer wuz a stevedore, y' understawnd, you'd 
'ave the chawnce at the job afore 'e would, d' ye see ? Thot's 
because 'e's a slinger. Awnd w'en 'e comes 'ome — day or 
night, ye might sye — 'ere's the byby as chipper as all ! . . . 
Yes, there's only five others of the twelve livin', or, as yer 
might sye, four. Ye see, I don't count the oldest. We 
don't keep 'im awnd 'e don't keep — nor 'elp us. 'E lives 
and works at the ice-cream shop. Twenty-two, ^e is — awnd 
blind. So, ye see, 'e's no good to us so there's no need ter 
count 'im, now is there? Cataracks — yes, cataracks, 'twas 
thot done fer 'im — a few days after ^e wuz born.'^ 

Neither men nor women seemed to be suspicious in the 
pubs visited yesterday in Newcastle down near the docks 
in a district full of that fearful poverty, drunkenness, and 
degradation into which it is so amazingly easy to walk at 
almost any time and place in the big cities over here, es- 
pecially the shipping cities. 

^^ Gimme a cigarette, mate?" came from a young woman 
of alert eye and intelligent face among the crowd of men 
and women pressing up to the whiskey bottles and beer 
pirnips. One of her young friends had a face like a perfect 
Madonna though she was extremely drunk. '^Well, you 
see, I've been suspended for givin' the thirsty boys too 
much beer on my night turns at the 'ospital. And just now 



^^ WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW ?'' 165 

IVe done twenty-one days — seven for being drunk and 
fourteen for assaultin' the bloody officer, y' understand? 
. . . Yes, I can kick a man pretty precise when I try, d' ye 
see ? . . . No, I don^t want to be seen smokin' this cigarette 
on the street. You see, I was born a sergeant's daughter, 
yes, sir, right over there in your country — in Alabama. . . . 
I'll smoke it later. 'Why, 'ello, 'usband Jack, back again !' 
... I call 'im 'usband — the court makes 'im pay me a 
pound a week for my baby. Yes, if I smoked it right now 
everybody 'round 'ere would talk." 

And from that she led into a serious and intelligent 
though half -drunken discussion of world politics! Verily, 
of all the traffic cops to be encountered at the multitudi- 
nous streets and intersections of the labyrinthine comings 
and goings of us humans, the strangest by far, as well as the 
strongest, with all its arbitrary and compelling alternations 
of ''Stop!" and "Go!" is that one deep down within the 
heart of every one of us known as Self -Respect ! 

People standing at their doors, like rats over their drains, 
to see a neighbor's funeral, made a heart-sickening sight of 
degraded and broken-down humanity. One of the be- 
draggled wrecks, and not the worst of them either, came up 
to ask help for a "pen'n-orth o' bread "for her gray hairs. 
There and in other parts of the city the heart felt the pathos 
of such as the ragged child with one of his legs hardly 
thicker than his little cane, and of the numerous other piti- 
ful possessors of bent or crippled little legs and backs. 

It does seem certain that the general or common laborer 
over here, though English-speaking, is of a lower grade and 
level than even our lowest workers among the foreign-born. 
I wonder if the reason is that our lowest workers have, per- 
haps, a livelier hope — a larger faith that a better job may 
come, and with it a better life. The question is whether 
regularity of employment, if and when this is increased by 
the present national efforts, will be able greatly to help 



166 FULL UP AND FED UP 

these near-wrecks of the dock districts, their wives and 
famihes, as long as bad housing and '^ booze" continue to 
flourish as they do — with also the ^^ bookie'' to be named as 
the third of the destructive trio. 

In Edinburgh Friday night a very sweet-faced woman 
swore softly and smiled sweetly in the strangest of com- 
binations as she staggered into the car, and the capable 
anti-rent-strike woman speaker was interrupted by the 
usual drunken listeners. 

^^Yus, awnd a bonnie-lookin', bloo-ody objeck ^e wuz, 
too!'' exclaimed one when Pussyfoot Johnson was men- 
tioned. 

Later the policeman explained that all was very quiet 
because everybody had been having a week's holiday and 
so had no money to ^^get up the pole." That is the same 
reason given for a comparatively quiet Saturday night here 
in Middlesbrough yesterday, though the drunken laborers 
and clerks could be counted by the dozen ! 

Just as I write these words at the lodging-house dining- 
table, in walk some footballers from Glasgow — ^mostly in- 
toxicated in preparation for a match near by. They in- 
sist that they will vote either for no license or more license 
— that is, for Sunday opening. But on pressure they admit 
that the whiskey-beer, not the Sunday closing, accounts 
for the greater drunkenness there in Scotland than here. 
One of them explained: 

'^In London a Scotchman wa' asked by the barmaid: 
'Jock, w'y do ye no' drink beer alone or whuskee alone?' 
and he says to 'er, he says: 'Uf Ah drinks whuskee aloon, 
then Ah'm dronk afoor Ah'm foo' (full). Uf Ah drinks 
beer aloon, then Ah'm foo' afoor Ah'm droonk. Wi' whus- 
kee awnd heer, Ah'm joost fet (fit) — Ah'm both droonk 
awnd foo> !^ " 

For economical adaptation of means to end, eflficiency 
engineers could hardly beat that I 



^'WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?'' 167 

Yesterday afternoon brought a ^^ close-up'' with the 
^^ bookies." After standing all morning in the vestibule of 
a crowded train from Edinburgh, and making the acquain- 
tance of a whippet dog and its interesting owner, it seemed 
altogether proper to witness the races in which the attrac- 
tive animal was entered. 

Everything about it is calculated to make whippet- 
racing an exciting occasion. Inside the fence hundreds of 
dogs, mostly in handsome blankets, are tugging wildly at 
their chains, barking and howling at the top of their lungs, 
with occasionally an almost human piercing scream of 
hysteria. Nearly two score ^^ bookies" are displaying their 
wager-boards and shouting: ^^Two to one on the Blue! 
Two to one on the Blue !" while men and boys rush up with 
their wagers of a ^^bob" or a ^^quid" (pound). When 
the starter's whistle sounds the holders or ^^ slippers," each 
with his dog, take their places at the upper end of the 
string runways, each of these being about three feet in 
width. Then the ^^runners-out" endeavor to fix the atten- 
tion of the held but howling, barking, shrieking, and 
squirming canine contestant upon the towel in their hands. 
Waving it wildly and shouting and whistling madly, these 
runners-out back off down the one hundred and ninety 
yards to the finish-line. With the count, the slippers grasp 
their dogs by the scruff of the neck and their tails, arms 
far back, Mr. Dog's hind legs high in the air. Ready! 
Bang ! goes the pistol ! Forward go the slippers' arms and, 
like brown streaks, down the lanes run the dogs — really at 
marvellous speed — each to grab the towel from its runner- 
out, or failing this to start a howl and a fight for one which 
a near-by contestant holds and shakes in its mouth. Up 
goes the flag for the — yes, by George, for the Red not the 
Blue! ^^Thot's a bit of orl right, eh, wot, mate!" Down 
surges the crowd in glee while, with impassive faces, the 
bookies hand out the winnings from their money satchels. 



168 FULL UP AND FED UP 

Few of the crowd of working men or clerks seemed to 
watch the races for themselves very closely; the judge's flag 
was evidently enough to show them either to get their 
winnings or how to mark their performance records so as 
to make them a help to more successful wagers later. 
Yesterday there were nine dogs entered for each of sixty- 
five heats ! Imagine the yelping of that aggregation, each 
one of them on the verge of nervous prostration in its desire 
to start for the towel! A prize of sixty-five pounds will 
reward the winner and the gains or losses will reward or 
punish the hundreds of gamblers on every heat. 

^^ Some dogs stop 'alf way. Some don't. Some get mad. 
Some don't. We study the character of the dogs and those 
that 'andle them — the ways and 'abits as well as the per- 
formances of all of them," a bookie explained. ^^We can't 
lose. The figures will get 'em — bound to, if they keep at it 
long enough. Yes, that's true with the dogs and the 'orses 
both. . . . But still, I just couldn't live without gambling 
— impossible. And I've got a boy who 'as more of a 'ead 
for figures than I 'ave. 'E'U be a wonder at this busi- 
ness." 

Well, for that ^^fed up" feeling of this morning, the only 
palliative seems to be a liberal application of that life-saver: 
^^It's a great life — forlorn humans, fleas, and all — if you 
don't weaken!" So I guess I can ^^ stick it" a few more 
weeks. 

Anyway, the whole country appears this morning to be 
much fed up itself. All the papers, including the par- 
ticular weekly murder-and-scandal sheet which outsells all 
others combined, are viewing most seriously the possibility 
of a huge, national disaster in the miner's strike ballot now 
proceeding toward a probably unfavorable outcome. In 
addition, the Electrical Trades Union goes further in its 
threat to strike and so tie up all industries because the 
National Federation of Employers continues to stand be- 




THE CROWD WAITS AS THE BOOKIES MARK UP THEIR PREFERENCES 
AT THE WEEK-END WHIPPET RACES. 



Hg 




^--.^^-^-^^'' w 1 




m^^^r^'- ~ . _ ,„ 


mx:§i ^. 



CROWDS LISTENING TO THE SMOOTH-TONGUED SALESMEN OF 
"RIOT, RACING, OR RELIGION— REPRESENTATIVES OF A BETTER 
CHANCE IN EITHER THIS WORLD OR THE WORLD TO COME." 



^^WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH GLASGOW?'' 169 

hind a Sheffield firm in refusing (since July 2) to require 
union membership of their foremen ! Dockers at London 
and almost all other points are reported in constantly worse 
condition following wide-spread lack of work — partly be- 
cause the high wages have attracted many into that field. 
All city employees in Cardiff have downed tools in sjnu- 
pathy with the city's track-layers; these make the same de- 
mand as put their friends oflF the job there that night at 
Newport. Everywhere the dockmen's unions are lam- 
basting the miners' unions for their ^^ca-canny" methods 
of sabotage. The general secretary of the ^^ Middle Classes 
Union" also comes out against the evil ways of the miners. 
Smaller strikes all over the country are too numerous to 
mention. In Newcastle the employees of the Co-opera- 
tive Wholesale Society are striking against their employers. 
These employers, of course, are themselves union leaders 
and workers. 

All this confusion is worse confounded by the fact that 
many of the Lords and other leaders who fulminate 
against the unreasonableness of labor also proclaim heat- 
edly that the present government (party) is possessed of 
'^Squandermania," is inefficient in controlling the cost of 
living as well as in handling the Mesopotamia situation, and 
is altogether unworthy of respect. This, of course, is taken 
by many of the labor leaders to justify their philosophy of 
''Direct Action," that is, of using industrial strikes to op- 
pose and undermine the government party when their 
votes fail to do it. Meanwhile the government has inter- 
cepted and published wireless messages showing that the 
Bolsheviks in Moscow consider labor's paper, the Heraldy 
one of their ''institutions abroad." 

The next four weeks look like exciting ones. Meanwhile 
the next few days should reveal something about the happi- 
ness or unhappiness of this Pittsburgh of Great Britain. 



CHAPTER V 



WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE, CINDER PIT 
AND CAST BED 

Middlesbrough, Yorkshire, 
August 25th. 

^Tullup! Not a chance! Full up !^' 

After getting that from a number of '^ gaffers'^ in charge 
of the various blast-furnaces and smelting stages which 
make this district famous, I'm for seconding the motion of 
the fellow-boarder here last night. 

^^It's all very well to be told by this chap and that: 
^There's a good berth 'ere and a fine crib there!' When 
you get there it's always just let out and they're 'Full 
up!' Always 'Full up!'" 

This is certainly the land of the strangle-hold on the job. 
If the Englishman's home is his castle, then the English- 
man's job is the portcullis and drawbridge thereof, for 
carefully reeling up and stowing carefully away inside the 
castle every night. 

''Since the war, y' understand, the unions 'ere 'as got 
much more powerful," a mechanic explained one factor of 
this matter of scarce jobs, especially the skilled ones. With 
his helper he was taking a long loaf at the foot of the hoist 
at one of the big hand-charged blast-furnaces. "At some 
works the union agents will be waitin' for ye outside the 
gates and will warn ye away if ye're not one o' them. If 
ye gets past them into the line, or 'market,' that stands 
over there every day just before the shift goes on, the 
gaffer's likely to save 'imself later trouble by takin' the 
union men first. . . . 

170 



WITH THE ^ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 171 

''My boy, 'e's apprenticed now to a joiner/' he con- 
tinued with what is certainly a real demonstration of the 
shape this problem takes there in the very castle of the 
worker. '' 'E's only fourteen and 'e cawn't be finished till 
'e's twenty-one. But, ye see, I daren't wait till 'e's sixteen, 
'cause there mightn't be any place for 'im then and there 
'appens to be one now. Ye see, that's the point. Yes, 
thot'll be meanin' seven years as apprentice instead of five 
from his start at a pound a week with a few shillin' added 
every birthday. But — well, 'e's sm-e of a place now fer 
hfe — and there's always work for joiners — always. Say, 
ye'd think 'e was savin' the 'ole family from ruin, thot im- 
portant 'e is." 

This quick jump ''from the cradle to the union" — out 
of short pants into overalls — sounds like the way some of 
oin* American millionaires are said to telegraph certain 
famous boys' schools engaging a place the moment the 
nurse whispers: "Masculine gender, sir!" 

"But I'm thinkin' serious o' gettin' a labor job myself," 
the mechanic went on. "The rises (raises) ain't been fair, 
like. Now, 'ere's my 'elper. All the war awards 'as raised 
'im 195 per cent above pre-war, w'ile they've raised me only 
125 per cent, d' ye see ? Thot makes 'im draw almost the 
same as me. But if any job's wrong, it's me that gets all 
the blame, not 'im. Now, thot's wrong, all wrong. And 
then 'ere's these dockers and all sorts of laborers besides. 
No six or seven years of apprenticin', d' ye understand? 
nor anything, and they gettin' their sixteen bob a day! 
Thot's wrong, all wrong." 

This same matter of comparative standings and relative 
wages has been at the bottom of much unhappiness among 
the workers at home. And for much the same reason — the 
comparatively rapid, or over-rapid, increase in the pay of 
the unskilled worker due to the war's demand for munitions. 
On a machine which had been made fool-proof by the skill 



172 FULL UP AND FED UP 

of the inventor the luiskilled worker could turn out a huge 
number of pieces and so could show earnings which upset 
all the previously established levels of earnings and other 
importances by which the skilled machinist or electrician 
enjoyed the sense of his superiority — and his wife's and 
family's superiority — in the working community. Appar- 
ently this important difference between the earnings and 
standings of the imskilled and the skilled worker is much 
less here now than in America, whether so largely due to 
the war or not. It sounds strange, for instance, to hear 
that with the dockers getting two shillings, bricklayers 
draw less than three shillings per hour. If the irregularity 
of the docker's work is given as the reason for the two shil- 
lings, it could also be urged on behalf of the bricklayer. 

On the smelting-stage the first and second hands make 
their fifteen and twenty pounds a week against their labor- 
ers' five to seven. This serves as a sort of bait for keeping 
the less fortunate workers hard on the job, guarding strenu- 
ously their position in the line — with its established chance 
at the higher jobs when they open up. The managers say 
that the high wages of the first and second hands prove 
how hard it is to get the worker to consent to a reduced 
wage under any circumstances. For after originally es- 
tablishing the high tonnage rates, they later took away the 
necessity of the old and hard work of hand charging the 
furnaces by installing the electric charging cranes. Then 
the managers took from the first hand the need of paying 
his helpers out of his own pay. Next the industry increased 
his tonnage by enlarging the furnaces. Finally, it became 
desirable to lessen his responsibility and need of skill by 
putting a ^'sample passer" over him. But all this failed to 
permit any chance of seriously decreasing his tonnage rate. 
Hence the larger and larger weekly earnings. 

All this money at the top helps to put onto the smelting 
stage — ^with a fair go at something like a career with its 



WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 173 

opportunity up — such a worker as I met yesterday: 
^' Yuss, I wore borned in thus bloo-ody furnace, 'ere ! Thirty 
bloo-ody years . . . but I'm mikin' good money now.'' 

From fields where the larger earnings at the top are 
lacking in comparison with other lines, men keep moving 
out. As a well-educated boy in a very antique smelting 
shop put it to-day: 

'^For five years I was in the 4ab' here — testin' samples, 
you know. But what's the use? You can never do any- 
thing but make analyses all your life — nothin' else. So 
'ere I am third 'and on the smelters — and 'opin' to be first, 
one of these days with good luck. That chap over there 
— 'charge-wheeler' 'e is — shoveUin' that lime and heavy 
iron-stone into the 'chargin' pans' all day — ^well, 'e's just 
left the 4ab' after ten years. Ten years as good as lost, in 
spite of all 'is brains." 

Yes, it looks as though the job's future possibilities are 
about as important as its hourly rates. Of course, there is 
the danger that this may mean the discouragement of in- 
itiative by putting too high a value upon the mere passing 
of time by the holders of the various places in the line, with 
the deadening results so often noted in civil service. Doubt- 
less, the managers here, however, require a certain amount 
of ability in addition to the serving of the time as a condi- 
tion to taking the next step up. Still, it looks certain, too, 
that management here does give men more assurance of 
their job with less strictness than in America, judging from 
the way I can walk all through these plants and loaf in 
them by the hour without getting into any trouble and also 
from the way all the workers, for instance, shrug their 
shoulders about coming into the works and onto the job 
with a good deal of whiskey and beer in their bodies and 
more or less in their clothes without apparently much 
danger of the '^call-down" they would be sure to get in 
'Hhe States." ''It's not so bad as it used to be when we'd 



174 FULL UP AND FED UP 

bring in beer along with us to work — by the gallon/^ is 
about the best the workers can say. The testimony among 
them, however, is mainly to the effect that a worker who is 
discharged for being drunk on the job is likely to ^^get the 
sack'' without the union's possessing the power to put him 
back for a long time, at least. 

More than a few of the older workers, besides the mechanic 
quoted, appear much troubled by the union's insistence 
that a boy turned twenty-one shall be paid the same daily 
rate as the oldest in the trade. So the result of all this 
comes pretty close, on the whole, to establishing in in- 
dustry here as well as in government something like civil 
service, especially in the fields where piece rates or payment 
by results cannot be practised. This is caused, at least 
partly, by the unions, though mainly, I should say, by the 
comparative scarcity of jobs. At any rate, if you couple it 
with the big difference in the education of the workers and 
of the "masters," which it in turn helps to cause, you are 
pretty sure to have the cause of the class lines which so 
definitely mark off the workers from much hope of entering 
the group of management in particular or the "master" 
class in general. In other words, the class line is largely an 
equipment line which follows as the night the day, upon 
what looks to me like a nation-wide scarcity of jobs. So it 
comes that the system of civil service or near civil service, 
when once established in industry for making oversure of 
the job, tends in turn to discourage education, initiative, 
and ambition by making them more or less valueless on the 
job — or, if valuable, then valuable only if you take a lot of 
risk of losing your place in the line. 

In that connection it is very surprising to hear the work- 
ers discuss seriously among themselves the question of 
whether they get the best treatment from the gaffers who 
have worked up from the bottom or from the others — from 
the rankers or the toppers. I don't remember ever to have 



WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 175 

heard it discussed by the workers in my seven months of 
laboring at home. 

^' Yer see 'e knows all the tricks and wants ter alius be 
showin' as 'ow yer cawn't pull 'is leg," one of the workers 
at one big smelting shop settled the discussion against too 
much promotion from the ranks. A soldier on a train last 
week — he was himself a petty official — ^was the strongest in 
his opposition: 

^'Hi never seen a ranker make a good hofficer yet — awnd 
HiVe 'ad 'em over me a lot — hadjutants and all. In the 
hexercises and heverywhere it's alius ^Hi've been there 
meseK, boys, and it cawn't be done. Hi'm too wise, boys.^ 
You know 'ow it is. No, sir, never one." 

They might be right, judging from one manager of open 
hearths, who, after the usual ^'Full up!" made his view- 
point sound pretty sane, too: 

^'If the company wants me to run this place I can't let 
the union do it for me — nor the men, now, can I? And if 
they pull my leg once or twice, I'm done in for good and I 
ought to get the sack myself. So I'm on the lookout for 
all the dodges I used to help the boys work when I was one 
of them. That's why you could take your time about join- 
ing the union so far as I'm concerned if I had a job for you. 
But there's no chance." 

Another ^^super" with something of the same experience 
in his twenty-five years around a blast-furnace from bot- 
tom to top, was equally sure — ^after he also had shaken his 
head for the everlasting ^^Full up !" — that the men working 
on time and not tonnage are a lot of first-class loafers who 
come with woozy heads onto the job every day after spend- 
ing most of their money at the pubs: 

''It's not such workers but the new American furnaces — 
like that one we're building over there — that we've got to 
look to for cheaper iron. They require about one man to 
the ten or twelve that these old tanks have to have. Of 



176 FULL UP AND FED UP 

course, you know that ^gun^ there — ^for putting in the plug 
after the furnace has been tapped for the ^cast' — is Amer- 
ican, too. It saves labor and is much safer, too/' 

Down in the checker-chambers, up on the ^^ stage," over 
by the rolls — every place where IVe been talking these 
last two days — ^most of the workers seem surely to have 
picked up the idea — mainly from the experience of their 
relatives and friends — that America somehow gives a better 
chance to '^get on'' and ^^be somebody." That being so, 
it is almost comical to watch their faces when I tell them 
that most of the steel workers in America are still working 
the long twelve-hour day and the full week, many of them 
working a double or twenty-four-hour shift every other 
Sunday, instead of the regular week-end stoppage which 
is regular here everywhere except in the blast-furnaces. 
All the variations of incredulity, surprise, disgust, and 
finally British pride, run over their features before they ob- 
tain enough answers to their questions to support the com- 
prehension and acceptance of the amazing news. *^No! — 
Now? — Twelve hours without time out for lunch or break- 
fast! — In America? — And seven days a week! Well, hail 
Britannia! I supposed we was bloo-ody well the lawst! 
Blime, yer don't sye ! WuU, now. Hi sye ! — " and so on ad 
infinitum. 

^^ Proper slavery it was afore we changed 'ere," a fire- 
heater put it. ^^ Bloo-ody murder — nothin' less! Awnd 
after the long double turns for chingin' the shifts — twenty- 
four bloo-ody hours — a feller would 'ave ter stop in fer a 
pint or two. Then the fust thing 'e knowed, 'e wuz done 
fer. 'Course 'e wuz all done in ter start with, like." 

It is amazing to learn that the eight-hour turn was ob- 
tained for the majority of the country's blast-furnace men 
as far back as 1897 ! 

'* Twenty-five per cent more we been gettin' out of the 
bloomin' furnaces, too, since the change," was the claim 



WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 177 

made by one of the men who remembered the old days. 
There is doubtless considerable room to doubt the accu- 
racy of his figures after so long a time. 

In general the attitude toward America appears a very 
good indicator of a man^s general information and prej- 
udices here. If he is certain that the whole of our country 
is in the hands of a dozen super-corrupt and, therefore, 
super-wealthy men he's pretty sure to be close to the rad- 
icals and the Bolsheviks, or, at least, the extreme Socialists. 
Of these, the two days of listening here would seem to in- 
dicate surprisingly few — certainly, at least, in comparison 
with South Wales and the Clyde bank. Yesterday after- 
noon permitted several hours out in the open fields up above 
the furnaces and at the entrance to the mines that gave the 
district its start by giving it its Cleveland ^4ron-stone,'' or 
iron-ore. ^^ Cleveland iron'' is one of the industry's basic 
terms. From the mouths of these mines half-way up the 
range of hills you can see with one sweep the scores of 
plants in the level — and lovely — ^plain below, and the rea- 
sons for them in the shape of the ore beneath your feet, the 
coal-mines of both Yorkshire and Durham near by, the lime- 
stone only a few miles away, and, finally, the well-dredged 
channel of the Tees River which brings big boats from all 
over the world into Middlesbrough harbor for the steel and 
the numberless other products of the Leeds districts farther 
inside. 

At the ^^winding-house" (electric) of one of the ^^ drifts," 
or horizontal mine-mouths, on the hillside, good luck brought 
me into conversation with a pair of the best-informed work- 
men met anywhere yet on the job. 

^^AU too far the big leaders down in London are goin^ — 
Bob Smillie and all. . . . Oh, aye, it's probably as unsafe 
for labor to have all the power as for capital. Co-operation 
between 'em's best. Co-operation and not nationalization. 
No, not nationalization. Why, if one of the post-office 



178 FULL UP AND FED UP 

clerks or one at the income-tax office was to say 'Thank 
you/ we'd fair fall over dead! They're all on their jobs 
'for the duration/ like, you know, so what do they care? 
. . • No, the Independent Labor Party is a lot of one-sided 
extremists/' 

''Oh, aye!" they both exclaimed when told of my ob- 
servation that few of the workers seemed to read much of 
the daily newspapers outside of the sporting news, after 
they had amazed me with their own daily reading of the 
doings of Parliament. "Few o' the miners understand about 
this strike that's planned — though they do see this company 
puttin' up plants with money that should go to Excess 
Profits Tax. 

*^Aiid you're right about your 'booze and bookies/ too! 
They're the greatest enemies of the working class. Fair 
disgusting it was when the war brought a beer shortage. 
Queues a quarter mile long outside every pubUc 'ouse with 
people inside fightin' their way up to the bar, swillin' down 
as much as they could 'old — ^fair eatin' it up, you under- 
stand — goin' out to vomit it up and then gettin' back into 
the line again ! One man that was standin' for Parliament 
jumped in durin' one shortage and with the 'elp of his in- 
fluence got three barrels sent into a thirsty district as a 
special favor. You can believe me or not, but it got 'im 
'is seat in the 'ouse ! Yes, sir ! Disgustin' — ^fair disgustin' 
—it all is!" 

"Fair astonishing" it was to learn a few moments later 
that they were both officials in the local iron-stone miners' 
union ! 

So all questions to date have supported the report en- 
countered in London that this is a conservative and com- 
paratively quiet sector on Britain's industrial and political 
front. The reason is beyond me — so far, at least. But there 
is a reason, without doubt. Perhaps it will be a whole fam- 
ily of reasons as there on the Clyde bank — ^hope it can be 



WITH THE/ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 179 

found, too, without requiring too many of my rapidly di- 
minishing store of weeks. 

After the final days here and in Sheffield it won't be par- 
ticularly heart-breaking to part with all my faithful little 
bed fellows — though it does give daily pleasure to note my 
constantly increasing skill as a hunter and slayer. Every 
morning now permits its boast of at least one trophy won 
by quickness of eye or speed of finger. Yesterday it was 
four ! It was almost as good a setting-up exercise for my 
'^mentals'' as my ordinary gymnastics are for my ^^phys- 
icals." Somehow it made the day look certain to be suc- 
cessful ! However, they contrive to beat me when it comes 
to results. Last night I counted up to a hundred uncom- 
fortable bites before growing too disgusted and homesick 
for further mathematical research. 

Perhaps, come to think of it, it was this depressing arith- 
metic of discomfort and disrespectability that made it 
sound so trifling when the highly self-conscious minister 
last Sunday night thundered and pounded so hard to prove 
that the only way England can solve her present serious 
troubles is for everybody to be ^'washed in the blood of the 
Lamb." He made a great point of the fact that ^'sin has 
a way of coming home to roost on the head of the offender 
— that's always the nature of sin !" He appeared unwilling 
to grant that the same is equally true for virtue, the dif- 
ference being, indeed, that we call our doings good or bad, 
sinful or virtuous, according as their results are observed, 
in the long run, to ''come home to roost" in happy and de- 
sired, or unhappy and undesired ways. What he seemed to 
think least worth noticiQg is that one of the most important 
of all the ''roostings" that may follow upon this or that line 
of doings is the resultant standing or lack of standing in the 
eyes of our neighbors and fellow citizens. So it is our own 
attitudes of praise or blame or indifference that are deter- 
mining to a very considerable extent the conduct of our 



180 FULL UP AND FED UP 

fellows. For that reason, at least one very present and 
practical function of the church is evident. So while he 
spoke I wondered whether he would ever discover any con- 
nection between the great number of drunken men and 
women streaming at the moment out of the open pubs, and 
a church preoccupied with the refinements of a mystical 
process whereby ^^ white robes'' are to be achieved by the 
almost unrecognizable world he was describing, a world in 
which such things as the Great War and the great war 
weariness, the Indispensable Job and the equally Indispens- 
able Self-Respect, evidently had no part. If such a church 
assigns but little social stigma to the drunkenness and 
gambling which are favored by the limitations of the job, 
and if these limitations mean that sobriety and initiative 
can bring comparatively little above the hourly wage-rate 
of the twenty-one-year-older — well, what difference to the 
eye of the worker is visible between the roosting manners 
of the brood of current morals and immorals? 

The church and the '^working class'' here are certainly a 
long way apart — farther, on the whole, probably, than at 
home. But we certainly have nothing to brag about in 
America. There the ordinary pastor seems to miss the 
point of both the driving compulsions and restrictions of 
the job upon the lower worker and also the rewarding op- 
portunities possessed by the higher worker, the employer 
and the executive for finding in his job the satisfactions of a 
practical idealism which makes the pastor's emphasis upon 
his obscure and mystical blood-washing technicalities sound 
impractical, unrelated, and trivial. 

Till the church learns better how much more — how in- 
finitely more — our jobs are influencing our thinking than 
our thinking is influencing our jobs, both the earners of 
daily bread and the earners of daily jam and cake are 
likely to be less interested than they might in the kind of 
salvation so laboriously represented by salesmen who ap- 



WITH THE ^ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 181 

pear to realize so slightly where their '^prospects'' live and 
move and have their being — there on the job in the midst 
of its complex but absorbing aggregation of compulsions 
and rewards. 

But all this more or less querulous philosophizing may 
mean merely that it's time to ring the bell for bed — now 
that IVe done as I find myself doing every night in a sort 
of unconscious effort at ^'protective behaviour/' namely, 
staying up as long as feasible in order to be as tired as possi- 
ble when finally ''I lay me down to sleep" in those dirty 
sheets in that vile room up-stairs. 

Middlesbrough, 
Thursday, August 26th. 

A single day here can bring a most surprising combina- 
tion of modern and old-fashioned establishments, all com- 
peting with each other in the same district. It seems strange 
that with good jobs so near by, men can be found willing to 
work where, for instance, two of them have to put all their 
strength together every time they want to open a furnace- 
door, as at one of the oldest '^stages" in the place, or where 
the firemen have to sweat all day in the half-darkness of 
some salt-furnaces. 

The outstanding thing is how regularly the attitude ol 
the man at the bad place reflects his surroundings — partly, 
of course, because the worst conditions usually get the 
worst man, other things being anything like equal, and 
partly because these bad working conditions are sure to 
affect the worker's feelings and, therefore, of course, his 
attitudes; as, with darkness at their backs and the blazings 
in their faces, these firemen threw shovelful after shovelful 
into their roaring fire-beds beneath the salt-pans, they 
looked like creatures of another world. Their caps were 
tight-fitting and their trousers came only to their knees. 
Their stockings were heavy and their shoes rough. They had 
been at the work many years, and reported that they were 



182 FULL UP AND FED UP 

very glad to greet the eight-hour day. Their minds were not 
well informed on the coal strike and the other issues of the 
day though their convictions were very definite and very 
^^anti." Though they said they could take a '^blow" after 
getting their fires going, it was evident that the dim elec- 
tric hghts were unfavorable to reading — or to pleasant 
thoughts about anj^thing. The loaders up-stairs around the 
tanks were stripped to the waist and working like mad. 
But they were in a Ught room and they knew that as soon 
as they emptied the tanks and put the clean white salt, 
still warm, into the trucks or railway cars, they could go 
home — ^with good pay for a full day in their pockets. It 
was impossible to stop for a chat with them, but I would 
wager real money that their ideas would be less radical 
than those of their mates in the dark passageway before 
the fires down-stairs. Practically always, too, the piece- 
rate worker feels himself enormously more the captain of 
his soul than does the time-worker. 

At practically all the local blast-furnaces the casting of 
the long pigs of iron is done in sand-beds without any cover 
anywhere except in the shanty, for a little loaf in between 
jobs. ^^It's no place for a proper mon on a wintry day w'en 
yer fice is burnin' and yer back's in a bloody freeze, like,'' a 
red-faced but husky worker put it. Up on the platform at 
the very top of the big blast-furnace the ^'mon" and his 
helper emptied the hand-carts of coke, ^'iron-stone," and 
Umestone into the cupola. Then when the ''bell," or cover, 
was raised the tons of materials for the charge, or "bur- 
den," disappeared in the huge maw of the great upright 
iron beast as the flame and smoke roared out and up to the 
sky — while we stood off and hunched our shoulders to keep 
the mass of cinders from going down our backs. Except 
when in the tiny shed that houses the weights which con- 
trol the '^bell," the two men are exposed to every wind 
that blows. 



WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 183 

Of course, against these winds and rains the boss up there 
is anchored by his tonnage pay. It runs around thirty 
shiUings a turn — ^^accordin' to how she works/' The boy, 
of course, also holds tight to the platform and the chance 
it gives at his superior's job. Meanwhile every worker knows 
that every wind and every cinder that makes the work 
more uncomfortable than a similar job down below has to 
be paid for, sooner or later, at so much per, before responsi- 
ble men will stick. Likewise it is easy to observe from the 
apologetic manner of the men who confess themselves to be 
working at 'Hhe most out-of-date smelting shop in the 'ole 
district'' that the management is either paying them more 
in order to save their self-respect — not very likely, prob- 
ably, in a country of union rates — or is regularly paying the 
estabUshed and uniform rate to the poorest of the district's 
workers — men whose self-respect among their fellows is 
not enough to take them onto the ^^ stages," of whose up- 
to-dateness they can daily boast to their pals at the pub. 
In either case the company is pretty certain to be getting 
less for the money paid its men than its better-equipped 
neighbors. In addition, also, it is undoubtedly having much 
more trouble getting along with them. Such men feel that 
they have the least of any in the neighborhood to lose by 
following the agitator — because they have the poorest jobs. 
Only those that have no job have less. 

The busiest plant in England was one this afternoon 
where building, machinery, light, and arrangement were all 
of the latest pattern. A youngster of a 'Hhird ladle-man" 
told me with great enthusiasm about his progress up the 
line of jobs — also of his recent '^ 'ohdays" spent in carous- 
ings with ^'beer, whiskey, port, and Harts' (giddy young 
girls)." He showed, too, the loyalty which is likely to 
underUe such remarkable orderliness and surprising in- 
dustry as the place exhibited when he suggested: '^Say, 
the boss 'ere is the best there is. 'E's worked in Amer- 



184 FULL UP AND FED UP 

ica, tco. Wy don't you just walk in and ask 'im for a 
plyce?'' 

If others of the plants the same executive is said to man- 
age are as good, the company ought to make a profit from 
the work its thousands of men turn out, after being able to 
pay the best of wages, as it must to get such energy. On 
the way out I kept wondering whether the men were get- 
ting much advantage from their wages in view of the num- 
ber that called: '^What's the news, mate?'' At first it 
seemed they must be interested in the Polish war or the 
League of Nations, but my reports did not get far. Of 
course, they meant: ^^Did Iron Hand or White Glove win?" 
Later, outside the gates, when I had a late-edition paper in 
my hand, a chap hurrying out asked about a little boy. I 
answered, yes, the little boy had ^^gone down that way." 
He looked at me in huge disgust — ^but forgave me when I 
let him take my paper and he quickly found to his delight 
that he had won the five bob he had been wise enough to 
put on ^'Little Boy"! 

It is to be hoped that none of his relatives was among the 
band of shawl-covered women and towsly-headed children 
who, apron or bag in hand, were strenuously combing over 
the cinder-dump in the eager search for tiny unburned 
''coals." . . . ''The gov'yment tells us to economize so we 
wants to be patriotic and 'ere we are!" 

The chances are pretty good — at least if he loses much — 
that my racing friend is of the same mind as a well-dressed, 
white-mufflered, and clean, though red-faced, engineer en- 
countered at a near-by pub: 

"Yes, all of us drivers get our pound a day — or there- 
abouts. But what's the use ? Ya can't save anything when 
you 'ave to pay thirty-two bob for these shoes w'at cost, 
say, twelve bob pre-war. . . . Course they's more drunks 
now. Thot's because o' the closin' hours. Ya see, every- 
body wants to get enough in 'im to 'carry on' till openin' 



WITH THE ^ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 185 

time again. And then, furthermore, it's rotten stuff nowa- 
days — just chemicals, that's bloody well all. W'y, one 
company pays a chemist a cool thousan' pounds to make the 
stuff knock you over without fair killin' ya ! . . . Yes, o' 
course, 'alf of them loses it on the streets. Thot's because 
they drink it on an empty stomach. Now it's like this: if 
ya was drunk last night, then, o' course, you didn't tike no 
breakfast this mornin'— ya didn't want it. Instead, ya 
tikes a pint or two and perhaps some whiskey to steady up 
with, like. Well, it won't stay. No, ya can't make it. 
Thot's w'y ya see it on the street. 

^^Yes, I 'ave drove thousands of the American soldiers 
up to the trenches — ^with shells tearin' up the track all over 
the plyce. Ond we engineers gettin' only the same wyges 
as if we was soldiers ! Never again f er me ! Not any more 
army life ! Fed up ! Goin' fer mebbe a coupla days with- 
out no food — it was shelled into garbage on the wye up, 
mebbe. No, sir, no more! . . . Haig, yes, 'e's quite all 
right. But I tell ya Kitchyner was ambushed. 'E was at 
Loos: I seen 'im there with my owne yes. There's somethin' 
queer there — somethin' queer. But, o' course all them 
bloomin' hofficers 'ad to do was to stay away from the 
lines and keep 'emselves safe — just like the government's 
doin' now with Lhde George at the 'ead of all of 'em. It's 
we citizens and workers as must be tret (treated) better. 
• . . Well, I'll see ya up there at the Rose and Crown to- 
morrow at two.'^ 

It won't be necessary to turn up if it appears that more 
opinions can be encountered elsewhere. But it looks as 
though I'll have to leave town if I'm to avoid '^ following- 
through" with a '^ first hand" left a few hours ago. He 
was on the job at the furnace, but his words reeked of 
whiskey — also of world-wide adventure crowded into his 
life in addition to his twenty-eight years on the smelting 
stage — also, further^ of friendliness. 



186 FULL UP AND FED UP 

''Say, now, old top, I'll call at your boardin'-house Satur- 
day night an' you an' me are the chaps as can 'ave a large 
party together — just you an' me an' a few glasses an' 
bottles an' things, eh? Ta! Ta! Cheerio!" 

Britain's Pittsburgh, 
Friday, August 27th. 

That ''one unfailing sign and symptom of fatigue — tem- 
per" — is sure to get a fellow pretty hard if he comes down 
from such discomfort as my open-faced garret affords, es- 
pecially if then he has to hold in his hunger until the sloppy 
maids find it in their good pleasure to set on the table the 
usual ham and eggs. Strangely enough, too, anybody who 
not only feels as much of a bum as these nights make him 
feel, but in addition looks it, is very uncertain of his stand- 
ing even in so punk a boarding-house as this — so uncertain 
that he hesitates to assert himself to the extent of using a 
little language on those same sloppy maids. Even though 
they look at the moment still lower down the scale than he 
does, he does well to reflect that they have behind them the 
power to put him out onto the street if they and their mis- 
tress don't like him. Besides, he must recall that each eve- 
ning one of the two takes her turn at dolling up in a clean 
waist and skirt, silk or near-silk stockings, powder 'n' ev- 
erything. Perhaps her hair still bears the marks of last 
night's grandeur, in which case it is quite enough to cow 
me with my unshaved face into proper meekness when added 
to the memory of filthy sheets and the disagreeable bed- 
fellows of the unpleasant night. 

The same dreariness of the up-stairs which spills us 
roomers in unpleasant moods into the dining-room serves, of 
course, at the day's end, to hold us together in the Uttle par- 
lor into the late hours. The Jamaican negro keeps usually a 
dignified silence. Now that he has been promised a job when 
a certain steamer sails, he is considerably envied by several 



WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 187 

of us fellow-boarders still in search of work. Every evening, 
too, he is either to be seen making the prettier of the maids a 
little present of fruit or else the lady herself volunteers the 
information — whether in the hope of creating competition, I 
do not know — that, ^'Last night it was chocolates. Very 
nice 'e is, you know, and quite a gentleman, too." 

The war bride of a young engineer who appears to have 
some humble sort of work does a very creditable job of 
weaving into her remarks the proper amount of alibis for 
their present fortunes — as also for their temporary unwill- 
ingness to bother with either home or children. If energy 
and determination are needed, she can be counted on to 
repair the family prospects shortly. Her stories of driving 
her ambulance through dangerous places in France and 
Flanders, and, later, of planting her strenuous fist in the 
impudent faces of those who at the docks were unlucky 
enough to use a certain nasty word in connection with her 
husband, make you feel sure that the proper job will some- 
how and some time be found here or elsewhere. Of course, 
a certain impression of masculinity and force comes from 
her amazingly free use of some of the war's worst profan- 
ity in combination with the shortness of her closely bobbed 
black hair. With all that, strangely enough, appears also a 
very good education in the schools of Canada and Paris. 
With a better job for husband and a little more femininity for 
her, they might make a fine go at politics. 

"Yes, sir, I'm a bit of a grammarian, you know,'' the tall 
and quite respectable-looking ex-hotel-keeper just in from 
Newcastle assures you with a leer of proud certainty of 
achievement which evidently comes from a certain number 
of whiskies. ''Aye, sir, 'tis a matter most important, this 
matter of grammi^r, and it's considerable study I've given 
it. Take 'rotten.' Now you might say 'rotten' — 'ow much 
education you've 'ad, I'm not knowing, of course, you'll 
pardon my sayin' so, won't you? — and I might say 'rot- 



188 PULL UP AND FED UP 

ten ' — and I've probably 'ad as much as you, first and last, 
seein' you'r 'ere from America and no job and all. Well, 
now, as I was sayin', we'd both say ^rotten.' Yes. Quite 
all right. But all the dictionaries — all the best diction- 
aries, that is, and I know them well, very well — they all 
say ^ w-T-O't-t'e-nJ And, of course, I'm not a man to con- 
tradict them — not in spite of the studyin' I've done. No, 
I'm not that kind of man, you know what I mean? 

'^ Languages, that's it, I'm a great man for languages — 
languages and grammar. You see, I worked years at night, 
portering in an Aberdeen hotel and had time to learn sev- 
eral very fine languages from the chef. He was an Eye- 
talian and a very learned man — and a very strong man, 
especially with the drink. Ten and twelve whiskies he 
would take regular every day. There was many others 
among the guests that I could wish was stronger with it — 
you know what I mean? Take Americans for instance. 
Very small tips they used to give — a tuppence or two — 
very small. That is, when they were sober. It took a few 
pints or a few whiskies to make 'em real cordial like to the 
^elp. But there's few of us but are better for a bit of it 
now and then. Good beer never hurt anybody — ^and be- 
sides, the government's got to 'ave it — 's a necessity, you 
know what I mean?" 

"With a bit of whiskey and he's quite all right," his 
sensible-looking wife would add quietly when the strain of 
the conversation — that is, the monologue — ^would become 
too great and he would all but fall upon the table in a doze. 
"But when he takes much more than his bit, it's best to 
get him to bed. I think I'll try now. Good night." 

"It seems to me a bit too bad, you know," the same 
person came out with at breakfast the next morning, in, 
probably, a more or less unconscious effort to restore her 
face, "that the American Government loses so much money 
by means of prohibition that every one of us over here has 
to pay more for the sugar you send us." . 



WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 189 

It was a moment before I could get enough breath for a 
reply ! 

Later in the day her unhappiness was recalled when a 
woman in a butcher-shop explained that: 

^'Of course, we 'as to ask more for the British beef than 
that imported from America. There's a prejudice against 
it, you see. That would be, of course, because durin' the 
war and the rationin', there was some of it bad — yes, very 
bad. But, I must say, that much of that was the govern- 
ment's fault. Often and often it came to us in coal trucks 
(railway cars) and very dirty it was — ^yes, very dirty." 

Since then I've been finding comfort in the words spoken 
about America by an intelligent-looking laborer who had to 
reply with a very unhappy and embarrassed expression, 
^^I 'aven't any job just now," when I met him back of one 
of the big furnaces in the busiest of all the plants: 

^^I'm sorry I didn't sprain my ankle when I stepped onto 
the gang-plank to come back from the States that last time. 
A man over there on your side of the water 'as better wages 
and better living — better every way, as I see it — ^more self- 
respect. . . . No, I can't go back — the fares are too much 
for the wife and three children I got now. And they was 
all born, you might say, 'omeless. You see, we can't get 
anything but one room in the whole town, that crowded it 
is, now since the war. . . . 'First 'and' I was before I lost 
it. Now, I'll be bloody lucky to get set on as bricklayer's 
'elper. And if I do get on, I'm fearin' the leaders will be 
takin' pounds out o' my pocket with their strikin's and 
agitatin's now that the miners look to be makin' trouble." 

Luckily I had moved away just in time to sidestep the 
threat which came to him most vociferously from a gaffer 
who had evidently seen him and his sad face before: 

*'I'll not be tellin' ye again ! Move along now, and be off ! 
Or I'll see ye're locked up fer loiterin' !" 

It was probably the contagious depression of the man's 
mood that brought my own low breakfast spirits close to 



190 FULL UP AND FED UP 

the explosion point a little later when I tried to get in touch 
with a company executive by using the telephone at the cen- 
tral post-office. 

There are only two 'phones there at the centre of a dis- 
trict of about 140,000 people. One of those is usually en- 
gaged with ^^ToU.'' The other has to be properly wooed 
with the ringing of the handle at the side and the pressing 
of the receiver at your ear. When with good luck you get 
a chance to give the number and are exhorted to ^'Hold 
on!'' you feel that at least the right expression is used for 
the maximum of grim patience and everlasting pertinacity 
required. One by one you press the two or three single 
pennies into the slot for the ringing of the bell and if all is 
working well you are again admonished to ^'Hold on!" 
A little later when you have raised your voice to its maxi- 
mum carrying power, the clerk at the other end advises 
sweetly that you should '^ Speak a bit louder, please. You 
see, they can't hear you, sir!" 

^^Be good-natured until ten o'clock. The rest of the day 
will take care of itself." If that sign were on any desk 
here, as it used to be a long time ago at home, I think it 
would be wise to put off the use of the government 'phone 
until, say, eleven, at the earliest. 

Of course, there ere enough makers of telephone com- 
plaints at home. The cure of such would doubtless proceed 
rapidly if they could be given a short treatment here, be- 
ginning with the search past numberless shops and apothe- 
caries for the very rare station at some newsdealer's — with, 
usually, the admonition that for 'Hrunk" or toll calls you 
must go to the central post-office! — followed next by the 
search for the pocketful of pennies required to make more 
than one or two calls. Probably it is just as well for the 
preservation of the proverbial British evenness of keel and 
temper that very slight use is apparently made of the 
'phone here. The number-book for this whole district con- 



WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 191 

tains only eighteen pages, at about 150 subscribers to the 
page — a total of 2,700 for about 140,000 of population — 
about two per hundred. Somehow or other I must find out 
how that compares with an average city at home — ^and, 
also, if possible, the cause of what is most obviously behind 
much of the trouble, namely, very bad equipment. From 
all that can be learned, charges are felt to be extremely 
high. Wonder if either the inefficiency or the reputed ex- 
pensiveness of the service can be traced in any way back to 
that source of so many other evils, ^^FuU up !" It would be 
easy to think of such telephones as one cause of the general 
criticism of the government, operated as they are by it, 
except for the fact that, in the nature of the case, compara- 
tively few of the general body of citizens can afford to have 
much to do with it. 

Perhaps this very abstinence is one of the reasons behind 
the fact that every day — even such a weary and near- 
explosive one as to-day— increases the original impression 
that the district contains comparatively few radicals or 
revolutionaries. So far, there hasn't been a sign of the street 
discussions of matters political and economic such as filled 
so many streets in Glasgow — as also both the working and 
non-working hours in the Welsh mine ! A good many of 
the homes I find are pretty bad. The worst of them, how- 
ever, are pretty sure to belong to stevedores and other dock 
workers, even though they are located quite close to the 
steel plants down in the very dirtiest and smokiest part of 
the town. There, by the way, is one of the vilest eating 
places yet encountered on the whole trip. I was amazed 
to find how soon I got used to the awfuUest of smells and 
had no difficulty making a fearful aggregation of meat and 
potatoes take the edge off a very sharp appetite. Neverthe- 
less, it is fairly certain that the families who live down 
there — and doubtless have lived there a long time — are con- 
siderably less happy than those who live in the other parts 



192 FULL UP AND FED UP 

of the city where the dirt is much less, though it is scarcely 
what anybody would call a spotless town. Some of the 
youngsters who followed me along the street as I ate a few 
cakes out of a newspaper sack were certainly more than 
grateful for the share they got of them. The men about 
the docks appear to think an average earning of 13-16-0 
extremely good— taking good days with bad. They were 
getting bothered by jobless men drifting onto the docks 
from other parts of the country where the mills are less busy. 

Every night appears to bring its contacts with the drink 
problem — ^right on the main street, too, not more than a 
few rods from the boarding-house on a side street. 

^^ Twenty pounds a week that roller there is a-mikin' 
noow!'' a well-dressed young mechanic exclaimed last 
night with a nudge as we passed a neat-appearing and 
well-built working man. ^^A level-'eaded chap, 'e is, that's 
sure. See 'ow strite 'e's walkin' ! As sober as you or me ! 
On twenty pounds a week ! Well, if thot was me, you'd see 
me rolUn' ^ome now in a taxi — if it wasn't my friends 
a-tikin' me — ^me and the load I'd be carryin' ! . . . Well, of 
course, I learned most of me drinkin' in the army. In the 
army there's nothin' else to do, ye see, whether ye're 'ere, 
at 'ome, or abroad, but drink." 

The hags that once were women are depressing enough — 
you come upon them in the back streets, perhaps, just as 
they are getting up from the gutter where some drunken 
would-be lover has knocked them, shouting dreadful and 
obscene sex profanities after their abusers or at the calm 
and capable ^^ bobbies" who are trying to urge them home 
in quietness and decency. So, also, are the men who show 
plainly enough that their better and soberer days are now 
in a far-distant past. But easily the worst of all for what 
they have to say about the future are the well-dressed and 
dapper young men with their white collars or clean, neat 
mufflers as they stagger by and call out their indeUcate 



WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 193 

flippancies to the still younger girls who blush and giggle as 
they parade up and down past the lighted windows in their 
very conscious efforts to attract attention of this beau or 
that, sober, if possible, but, at any rate, a beau. 

It isn't as bad as it will be Saturday night or Sunday— 
or Friday — and, except on those nights, the vomitings seem 
fairly well restrained. But the poUceman says that the 
week has been showing more drunkenness each night as it 
progresses, owing to the fact that last week was mainly a 
holiday, with, therefore, a little time required before the 
usual gait can be attained ! 

^^Oh, aye! I 'as a family oop Newcastle wye,'' a very 
muddled Northerner answered last night as we found our- 
selves together admiring a fine piece of Scotch woollens 
labelled, ^^Only ninety shillings the suit !" ^^No, there's no 
job fer a mon 'ere — not as I knows of. Oonless yer could 
get a berth on a boat, mebbe. Awnd fer thot a mon moost, 
o' course, be a British citizen awnd 'ave 'is pipers (papers) 
right 'andy Uke. Awnd 'ere I am wi' me own bloody pipers 
lost, too, since I came to this town !'^ 

'^That's fair 'ard luck. Then you and me is a long way 
down the drain — besides one of us bein' well ^up the pole' 
(drunk)," was the best that I could do for him. 

'^Well, I'm bloo-ody glad thot the Poles is gettin' on a 
bit, onywyes!" was his own brilliant and cosmopohtan 
repartee as he lurched out into the street there to miss a 
motor by the hair's breadth of the proverbial drunken man's 
luck. 

On the whole, the wisest way of trying to get a more in- 
spirational view of things is to go up-stairs to bed, now that, 
as usual, I've stayed up as long as custom seems to per- 
mit. Perhaps if I don't Ught my candle I can forget the 
color of those sheets. With all the successful executions 
I've been staging these last few mornings, prospects ought 
to be fairly good for a restful night. 



194 FULL UP AND FED UP 

Middlesbrough, 

Friday Evening, August 27th. 

Everybody here, apparently, is willing to admit that the 
London steel people were right when they named this 
place as the centre of Britain's iron and steel industry. Ac- 
cording to the local legend, it all started from a fellow- 
townsman's toe — ^possibly in combination with a certain 
amount of temper. While hunting, this man gave his toe an 
unusually painful stubbing on what he had a right to re- 
sent as an unusually hard piece of rock. It is easy to imag- 
ine how, as he gritted his teeth with the pain, he first made 
a grab for the poor toe; then how his pain gave way, a mo- 
ment later, perhaps, to indignation at his clumsy — and pain- 
ful — awkwardness; how that, in turn, was perhaps assuaged 
by the determination to save his face, as it were, by learn- 
ing if that particular piece of stone could not be shown 
harder and heavier than it had any normal right to be, in 
which case there would be more excuse for his otherwise 
unpardonable awkwardness ! Anyhow, the story goes that 
he took the offending rock to a man for assaying and in 
that way discovered that the stuff was really not stone at 
all but iron! Anybody that has ever shovelled the stuff 
knows how heavy it is ! One of the most successful of all 
the local companies now bears the hunter's name as its 
founder and successful head. The forty-three blast-fur- 
naces which nightly light the district's skies and throw their 
glare upon the city's streets are all so many brilliant monu- 
ments to his good protestant toe and questioning disposition 
if not his temper. Doubtless the owner of these properties 
of body and mind also had considerable to do with the great 
improvement on the Tees River by means of the use of the 
slag, for straightening its channel down to the near-by sea. 
It was on the shores of that sea, by the way, that the first 
ore-mining is said to have been done — ^by men going about 
with no other mining tools than two hands and an open bag ! 

This same district also saw the installation of the world's 



WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 195 

first steam-railway system. It was the foresight of two 
Quakers renowned for their level-headed shrewdness— Ed- 
ward and Joseph Pease, by name — that helped the inventor, 
George Stephenson, to establish the country's first rail 
service. For many years the original engine ran between 
the near-by towns of Stockton and Darlington. ^^HiVe seed 
men thot was drivers themselves on the old hengine, mind 
ye,'' an old fellow in one of the pubs assured me, while one 
of his ancient mates added with a nod that in the old days 
they used to start the fire with the help of a sun-glass. In 
that case, it is to be hoped that under such cloudy skies 
the train did not have to depend exclusively on that for the 
making of its schedule. 

The chief diflficulty with which the district has to con- 
tend is that both the quantity and the quality of the local 
ore are running out. 

^^Unfortunately local or 'Cleveland^ iron stone is very 
low-grade stufif — ^about 33 per cent — ^when we do get it. 
When the price of steel products goes down, we'll hardly be 
able to bother with it and the costliness of the labor of get- 
ting it, in spite of its nearness. . . . The minimum wage 
gives the miners here a minimum of seventeen shillings for a 
seven-hour day." 

The same group of executives in one of the large companies 
where I established contact went on from this statement to a 
very frank discussion of the local labor situation : 

^^ Labor has probably been somewhat spoiled by having 
almost every one of its demands compUed wath for the sake 
of winning the war. Some of the leaders see now the neces- 
sity for accepting some of the setbacks that business in 
general expects to have to accept — lower prices, lessened 
profits, and all that. But for the rank and file, the only way 
will probably be the way of losing this or that fight for higher 
or even the same wages as before. That's quite likely to be 
the result of the miners' strike now on the way. 

^^In our opinion a union — and a whole trade, or craft, or 



196 FULL UP AND FED UP 

company, or industry, for that matter — will suffer in the 
long run if its policies are not worked out to produce long- 
run fairness and to show long-run consideration. For in- 
stance, take the engineers and ^the more skilled mechanics. 
During the war they decided that they must not be asked 
to go to fight because they were too much needed at home. 
That was their own decision, you understand. Well, at 
the same time, we had to work out machines for getting the 
munitions faster than they were willing to give them to us 
— automatic and what you call fool-proof machines that a 
general laborer could get big results from — ^and big pay, 
too. Sometimes, of course, this general laborer could run 
several machines. Then the engineer fellows tried to stop 
that by insisting on ^One machine, one man!' They, of 
course, tried all the harder when they saw unskilled men 
who had never gone through any period of apprenticeship 
getting more on payment by results than they were getting 
working on time, after they had resisted piece-work, you 
see. But most of us felt that it was because of their own 
overselfish short-sightedness. In general, you'll find that 
those unions have lost standing not only with the masters 
(owners) but also with the workers in general. 

'^The unions as a general thing want to be quite fairly 
reasonable if treated with understanding; it is the manage- 
ment's fault where it loses control of its own shop to the 
unions. Of course, giving a man the sack is a very serious 
thing — especially if he has worked up to be, say, a first or 
second hand on the smelters. If he has to leave here then 
he has to start at the bottom — at or near general labor — in 
the other shop, for none of those there should be set aside 
in order to give him a place up the line. That being so, 
perhaps it's not so bad, you know, for the union to watch 
that nobody gets the sack unjustly. Where we have found 
a man loafing and have sacked him, we have often been 
able to insist upon his crowd's showing more energy before 



WITH THE ^ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 197 

we will consent to reinstate him. In one case where the 
men asked that 300 pieces should constitute a full day's 
work, we officers ourselves went out and showed that 1,000 
was easy. The men's representative laughed, and the next 
day his men— just to show what poor workers we officer 
chaps were — did 5,000 ! We were perfectly glad to agree on 
1,000, however. 

^'Yes, if a man has got drunk, has stolen, or committed 
some other crime before the law, we have to be rather quick, 
you know, to show our displeasure by discharging him. If we 
wait until after the court has sentenced him, the union is 
likely to insist that he has been punished twice, just as in 
the case of the railway men who stole the pianos. 

^'The claim of the Electrical Trades Union that a worker 
should retain his union membership when he becomes a 
foreman is a bit more compHcated than it looks. You see, 
if he gave up his membership and then happened to lose 
his job he would probably have to start at general labor 
before he could get another job. At least he would have 
to compete with other men who had the same experience on 
their cards as he and then had union cards in addition. 
And for the most part, in steel when we need men we ask 
the union officer to supply them. Generally they are used 
more by the iron and steel employers than the government's 
labor exchanges. Besides this trouble with the job, there- 
fore, the worker-foreman who left his union would also lose 
the union's old-age annuity benefits — ^after paying into them, 
perhaps for thirty years. So we generally have them con- 
tinue here in the union but without attending meetings — 
which the men, as well as we, find quite all right." 

After talking during the last day or two with a number of 
other employers, the reasonableness of their view-point 
seems typical of the whole district, at least so far as iron 
and steel are concerned. All seem to agree that the old 
twelve-hour day was too long — ^also that the short day has 



198 FULL UP AND FED UP 

been in operation for too short a time to show how it can 
increase output, the higher positions which require ordi- 
narily a number of years of training now being '^diluted'' 
with workers who had to be moved up the Hne rapidly in 
order to fill the additional third shift. At one big estab- 
lishment a dispute is now on with the rollers. It seems that 
a new set of rolls has just been put into operation — much 
bigger and more modern than anything in the district. In 
view of its huge cost as an extremely intricate and sensitive 
piece of machinery, the management claims that responsi- 
bility for its operation and up-keep must be given to a highly 
trained mechanic or fitter. The union insists that, being a 
pair of rolls, it must inevitably be under the charge of a 
roller. 

^^And there you are! But considering that it is our ma- 
chine and represents our capital, we shall insist that it is 
for us and not our workers to say. That is a quite reason- 
able claim, is it not?'' 

The splendid thing is that no one of these officials, whether 
they are regular superintendents or in one or two cases labor 
managers, appears to fear that between them and the shop 
committees which comprise the union representatives there 
is any great probability that any issue will be settled wrongly 
for either side. Such confidence is, of course, the very be- 
ginning of justice and fair dealing because it cuts the ground 
from under the feet of fear — feet which can always be 
counted upon to run in the direction of the fightings and 
bickerings and meannesses called out whenever self-preser- 
vation is apparently threatened. Apparently, too, this con- 
fidence is the splendid flower of thirty years or more of 
friendly relations between the managers and the men. 

This same impression of remarkably reasonable and 
peaceful relations on what long has been a very hectic 
sector of the industrial front in America is born out of my 
chat this morning with one of the heads of the blast-furnace- 



WITH THE 'ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 199 

men — a big, heavy-mustached possessor of a body made 
strong and husky and a head made level, if not highly 
tutored, by twenty years of hard work around the cast- 
house and the pig-bed. 

''Ever since 1897 we 'ave 'ad the three shifts on the fur- 
naces; the first in the land was 'ere, too. Awful it was be- 
fore then ! Awful ! We used to fall asleep right there on 
the job — over our food, perhaps. Often. Many times, too, 
I've seen me cryin' with the blood on my 'ands — and me 
that doon in." 

He is a Sociahst but does not seem to be ''working at it," 
possessing as he does a great respect for all the leaders 
among the local manufacturers and feeling that his group 
of workers have more than maintained themselves in wages 
and hours and general prestige in comparison with the other 
workers of the country. His union enrolls most of the coun- 
try's blast-furnacemen but is apparently one of the com- 
paratively few remaining unaffiliated with the Iron and Steel 
Trades Confederation. "They're too autocratic. My men 
can give me the sack on three months' notice. The 'eads 
of the confederation we think too sure of their jobs — too 
independent and too fond o' London." 

"Besides the three shifts — and we beheve that has in- 
creased output by 25 per cent — the other big thing is good 
wages — our men have increased 250 per cent over pre-war — 
and the sHding scale for payment by results. By that, when 
the cost of Hving goes up, the selling price of our standard 
Cleveland iron stone generally goes up with it. That takes 
up our tonnage wage rates automatically, as you might say. 
Then we have good arrangements for settling all disputes. 
Our union representative, for one thing, must be a worker 
there at the job — right at the furnace, one of the men — not 
what you call a walking delegate. The men at the plant 
elect him. He goes first to the manager after the foreman 
has been unable to fix something that's gone wrong. After 



200 FULL UP AND FED UP 

that the manager is asked to see a deputation, perhaps from 
the local council made up of the delegates from all the local 
shops. After that it's taken up by two chosen from the 
council and two from the managers. Then it goes up for 
arbitration by a national group. But it seldom gets half 
that way, now that weVe come better to understand each 
other." 

As one might judge after going about in the blasts with 
their uncovered cast beds, he seemed to have thought lit- 
tle about conditions of work outside the shorter hours — 
probably because the pressure from the men has kept him 
too busy on wages and such matters. 

*'No, we're not for the men bathin^ at the plant, though 
they do often come 'ome wet through from workin' in the 
'eat an' the rain. Men don't take proper changes of clothes 
for the bathin' — and they use too much 'ot water. A 
friend an' pal o' mine died that way. No, we're not for 
that." 

* 'Prohibition? No, we're not for that, either! You see, 
all 'ot workers — ^furnacemen and smelters — they must have 
their beer, you know. Still, I will say, there's too many 
that's big earners but drink it all up. I regret to say, also, 
that in some classes we started 'ere among the men, in 
chemistry and iron-makin', you know, the Irish and the 
Scotchmen stuck it out and the English quit." 

According to a worker in a cinder-pit the other day, one 
reason John Barleycorn is such an enemy of the worker is 
that nowadays, besides being much more expensive, 'Hhe 
stuff's so weak that ye 'ave ter drink twice as much of it 
as befoor. In the old days ye cood get drunk on a shillin'; 
now it costs nearer a pound ! Some o' them as 'as more 
money than ever afoor the war fair swill it, but 'tis not so 
bad — the drunkenness, ye oonderstawnd — ^now as 'twas ten, 
twenty year ago, not by fair odds. It costs too much !" 

Somehow or other beer or whiskey seems to get into nearly 



WITH THE ^ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 201 

every discussion. Of all the comments yet encountered 
that to-day from one of the executives is the oddest — that 
prohibition here is likely to lead to race suicide for the rea- 
son that any sober working man would hesitate to bring 
children into such bad conditions of living as many of the 
country's cities furnish ! 

The only answer to that would seem to be the thought 
that either those conditions be ended with better houses 
which men might build, with less chance for drink, or else 
that the number be decreased of those who are born into 
them to crawl about on the bent and weazened little legs 
that bespeak that distemper of poverty which one of the 
continental nations has been unkindly observant enough to 
call 'Hhe English disease.'' 

Well, at least, it's hopeful to see that managers and 
workers are immensely nearer to each other here than any- 
where yet encountered, even though it might be wished 
that they differed somewhat more in their attitude on what 
appears to an outsider as such a compUcation iq the whole 
problem. Evidently the industry as a whole here has not 
yet run into the hard tim.es which some of the financial 
leaders see coming. In a new plant here is to be seen such 
a collection of the most modern and up-to-date electrical 
equipment of rolls and furnaces as any establishment in 
the world would be proud to show. And near by are workers 
hving in a brand-new model town with pretty streets curv- 
ing about attractive four-rooms-and-bath homes built to 
sell at 700 to 900 pounds— only $2,800 at the pound ster- 
ling's present value. They appear well constructed, too, 
around a framework of angle-iron fabricated in the town's 
own steel plant. 

Altogether this whole place gives a fellow hope. If these 
employers and these workers can get together as well as 
they have, then it ought to be possible elsewhere. Here 
are reasonable, fair, and forward-looking leaders both of 



202 FULL UP AND FED UP 

men and managers — and here, it certainly must be evident, 
are more than a few reasons for the same. 

Evidently nothing of this reassuring sort has as yet been 
found in the coal-fields, at least nothing substantially calm 
and cool enough to offset the radicalism of my old buddies 
back there in Wales. Every day the outlook for the walk- 
out of the miners in the whole country grows worse; though, 
as might be imagined, nearly all the workers, as well as the 
citizens in general, dread it greatly and hope that somehow 
it may be avoided. According to the morning papers Swan- 
sea had begun to buy coal from America! Swansea there 
almost at the mouth of the great Welsh coal district — 
Swansea, of all places! Well, it will be worth while to- 
morrow over at Barnsley, the capital of the Yorkshire coal 
area, to see what can be learned in this absorbing — ^yes, I'll 
say this thrilling — game of trying to find the connection 
between men's working conditions and their active, their 
working convictions, between the state of their body's mus- 
cles and the coolness or the ^^het-up-ness" of their soul's 
^^ mentals." Barnsley is a pretty long jump from here as 
distances go, so here's hoping for a better than usual night's 
sleep. 

Later. 

Of all the luck ! 

Before facing those sheets up-stairs — even in the candle's 
light — it looked good to take a turn 'round. Outside a 
workmen's store or shop for seUing and distributing Social- 
ist and similar literature I happened onto two interesting- 
looking men, one of them a member of the local Socialist 
council. They are quite thoughtful fellows and were greatly 
interested in my coming from America; they reported all 
the British Socialists as setting great store by Jack London, 
of whose writings the shop sold large quantities. They 
seem to think it hopeless to try to change the present order 
of affairs gradually by any attempt to make any diagnosis 



WITH THE ^ANDS ON SMELTING STAGE 203 

of the causes of the world's present unhappiness — '^ There's 
17,000 tons of soot and cinders falling into this town every 
year. Now what can a man do with that !'' But, neverthe- 
less, after we had got each other's confidence, one of them 
in the hearing of his pal told his troubles — ^and my ears 
were delighted as he told them, too. 

'^Well, I'm fair puzzled over it all. 'Ere I work the 'ole 
of a bloody year. Awnd what do I get to show for it? 
Nothin' ! All the time tryin' to get these bloody steel men 
into the radical organizations for givin' ourselves a fair 
start alongside of the wonderful things they've done — the 
workin' men, ye understawnd— in Russia. But not a look 
do these steel fellows give me, not one. I'm fair like to lose 
me job unless I can get some of them in for my report." 

With the nods, and for the most part the general assent, 
of his pal, who has grown up in Middlesbrough, it was 
agreed between us that ^ there's a reason" for such commu- 
nity view-points, and that in this particular case these rea- 
sons were very close to such as the following, to wit: 

First, the steadiness of the Middlesbrough steel jobs; 
second, the absence of ^^ tiredness and temper" favored by 
the shortness of these same jobs on the three-shift system 
and the comparative comfort of the town's four and six 
room houses, built frequently with bath, thirty instead of a 
hundred and thirty years old, as in some cases on the Clyde 
bank; thirdly, the poor chance for suspicion and distrust 
which grows up where worker and ^^mawster" are on such 
good terms as in Middlesbrough; and, fourthly and finally, 
the self-respect which grows up out of such regularity, such 
good, decent surroundings, and such good confidence and 
sharing, especially when these are aided by good wages 
which, by means of the sUding scale, automatically keep 
pace — and more than pace — with the cost of living. 

As a parting shot they asked how it comes about that 
there are so many Socialists — and such active ones — ''over 



204 FULL UP AND FED UP 

Lancashire way" where they have such ''good wages, good 
gaffers, and all/' Luckily I could alibi myself out of an- 
swering the question because I hadn't visited that part of 
the country and if they'd give me a chance I'd sure enough 
find that ''reason there, too — ^bad livin' conditions, ir- 
regular work, or somethin'." 

No, I'm going stronger than ever on human nature and 
on the general proposition that "Men are square!" 

And that, too, in spite of the fact that the evening paper 
says that "fifty thousand war widows have been found by 
the government to be living with unmarried men in order 
not to lose the pension of 20/ given widows under 40, the 
26/8 given to those over 36, etc., etc." 

At least this can be said: that there is no great underly- 
ing difference within human nature itself in the different 
countries. Such a difference surely could not exist, and 
still favor the amazing way a man hears the same senti- 
mental announcement every time a crowd of boys and girls 
go singing by whether here or back in Swansea or the mine 
towns of Wales or farther back in those other mine camps 
of Pennsylvania, to the effect that "Wedding-bells will ring 
so mer-ri-ly," etc. 

I wonder if the children of the unmarried war widows will 
grow up to join these same groups when they change as 
regularly as they seem to, to "That old-fash-ioned mo-ther 
of mi-ne!'^ 



CHAPTER VI 

MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS OF THE MILD 

MIDLANDS 

Barnsley, Yorkshire, 
Sunday night, 
August 29, 1920. 

British industry can certainly give us Americans some 
pointers on the week-end holiday. Of course, we are gradu- 
ally getting the idea but certainly very few of our steel 
workers, for instance, would have the courage to insist 
upon closing down the open-hearth furnaces from the last 
tapping Friday night until a fresh charge Sunday evening, 
as appears practically universal here. One of the steel men's 
leaders here has said, too, that few changes would be op- 
posed more bitterly than any effort to eliminate this week- 
end lay-off. About 2,000,000 workers are also said to 
have agreements giving hoUdays of three to fourteen days 
with pay, according to length of service. 

Yesterday afternoon it was an exhilarating sight to see 
here a crowd of about 10,000 miners turn out from all the 
country round to see a football game between a local team 
of miners and a team of Sheffield steel men. A good game 
it was, too, as anybody with half an eye would testify. A 
well-dressed and altogether prosperous-looking crowd they 
were. Such a sea of neat caps and clean, fresh neck 
mufflers they made — and such quick and unerring judges, 
too, of good foot work or head work in the drooling of the 
ball or the guarding of the goal. Indeed, for head work the 
ball sometimes went the length of the field by being butted 
skilfully from one man's head to another's ! 

In an open field on the way to the game, a half-dozen 
men and boys were taking chances on their pigeons. One 

205 



206 FULL UP AND FED UP 

with his watch in hand would wait very intently for the 
right second as his friend, the starter, held the bird in his 
right hand far back and ready for tossing high in the air. 
At his ^^Go !'' the bird would be thrown perhaps thirty feet, 
there to get its wing, and, after a circle or two, dart off like 
a flash for the home cote in another part of the town, 
dodging the wires and spires and chimneys in a splendid 
effort to cover the distance. Evidently the starting times 
had been agreed upon in advance, so that the instant of 
arrival would be noted and the bird's performance duly 
recorded with a view to a successful wager when some more 
important event was arranged. Apart from the amount of 
money won or lost, it looks like an enjoyable sport — and 
one in which the necessary investment can hardly be so 
very high. For one thing, at least, it can be enjoyed with 
less wear and tear upon the ears than the whippet racing. 

Perhaps it is partly because the short stay here and the 
necessity of getting into touch with both the mine owners 
and the mine workers has required the return to the white 
sheets and other comforts of a fairly good hotel — at any 
rate, it is easy to feel a long distance away from Middles- 
brough and the other busy cities of industrial England. It 
is hard to imagine a more peaceful and comfortable scene 
than that enjoyed yesterday when a table acquaintance 
and I lolled on the grass of the town park and looked across 
the countryside. Beautiful meadows with their thick car- 
pets of green dotted with lazy cattle or picnicking families 
or strolling lovers, great patterns outlined by the pleasant 
hedges around squares of yellow grain, smoke curling up 
indolently from prosperous though simple cottages, church 
spires or colliery 'Hips'' rising above the clumps of trees — 
all make it look like a very happy combination of worthy 
work and pleasurable living, made possible, evidently, by 
means of a thorough domestication and humanization of 
the local industry, underground though that is. Almost 



MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 207 

anybody could imagine himself lying there in the grass and 
coming into sufficient exaltation of spirit — if not into suf- 
ficient energy of muscle — for the finding of the paper and the 
guiding of the lazy pencil for expressing some such senti- 
ment as Goldsmith's: 

f'How pleasant then in shades like these 
To crown a youth of labor with an age of ease!" 

But it became very shortly evident that nature and hu- 
man nature have to co-operate in order to do the whole job 
of making people happy. My new-found acquaintance was 
moved by the beauty of the scene to reveal his ideas about 
his job and his fellow workers on it. 

^^No, I can hardly say that my education has done much 
for me, you know, in my present responsibilities as the man- 
ager of my father's business. Like every other boy born in 
my class, I spent the years between twelve and fourteen at 
a public school — I suppose you Americans would call it 
anything but a public school, because it is the sort of school 
attended only by the -sons of the upper classes — like the 
chaps you read about, you know, at Harrow and Eton — 
schools where the Iron Duke said the battle of Waterloo 
was won, and all that sort of thing. Well, at these public 
schools the studying is mostly Latin and such things — ^very 
classical and all that. The chap who is remembered longest 
at such places is the one who is best in some line of ath- 
letics — ^ Oh, yes, I recall him ! Made a jolly good record in 
cricket and at the sculls, didn't he ? Yes, quite so, fine chap, 
I remember!' Of course, it does give a man a fine lot of 
acquaintances with the others of the same set about the 
country, and I dare say that's worth while. 

^'But now, of course, my job is to get on, not with that 
set but with our workers, isn't it? Well, as a matter of 
fact, I have quite such a problem on just now. Many of 
the men in our paper factory have been with us as much as 



208 FULL UP AND FED UP 

fifty years and weVe always got on with them quite all right. 
But during the war the younger ones organized them all 
into a strong body for increasing and increasing — ^always 
increasing — their weekly pay. And now it's simply im- 
possible to pay them what they ask for the small amount 
of work they give, you know — ^and still make any profit 
out of the business. So IVe been taking a little vacation to 
think out a plan and here it is, if you would care to know it. 
I shall accept an offer from one of our competitors to take 
over the whole business and so close up the place pending 
final negotiations. After the men have spent a few weeks 
wondering whether they stand a chance of being continued 
at their places, I shall say to the oldest and most thought- 
ful of them that if I can have their co-operation — and their 
services at a reduced rate, you understand? — ^perhaps I 
can somehow or other wangle it to get things going again 
for the old crowd, especially the oldest of them — the old- 
est and most reasonable, you see. Of course, this sale I 
speak of will only be bogus, though I shall take pains, you 
may be sure, to give every evidence to convince them that 
it is a quite bona-fide affair and in every way quite all 
right, you know.'^ 

As he set forth his plan the words of a very thoughtful 
Socialist encountered there on the smelting stage last week 
in Middlesbrough came back to me: 

*'Yes, the worker is much to blame. He often goes too 
far in his demands and too often he refuses to raise his 
standard of living and his personal equipment and capacity 
— too often he spends his additional earnings on drink in- 
stead of furniture. (Personally I don't drink or smoke.) 
But with all that, I think we must have a new system of 
society simply for this one reason: Management and Capital 
just canH he trusted. With the lure of profits, you under- 
stand, it finds it too easy to be dishonest — just personally dis- 
honest with the worker and with society in general/' 



MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 209 

It is very unpleasant to have my ^^public-schoor' ac- 
quaintance give such good support to my smelting-stage 
friend. The only reply appears to be that there must al- 
ways be motive, whether financial or T)therwise, in order to 
get individual response and energy, and that in all times and 
under any system, men will be tempted to ^'short-circuit'' 
their way to the overquick and unrighteous and unjust re- 
ward — ^with always the need, accordingly, at all times and 
under any system, of the restraint which comes from the 
moral soundness that is content to rest its case on those 
*'mills which grind right slowly yet exceeding sure." A 
clipping of a day or two ago, by the way, tells of the discon- 
solate stone-breaker by one of these wonderful roads re- 
plying to the minister's greeting with: ^'Ugh, they stones 
be as bad as the Ten Commandments. Ye can keep on 
breakin' 'em but ye can't get rid of 'em." 

Of course, it is just such ruses that enormously complicate 
the whole matter for the employer who would deal justly. 
In many cases his men have been trained by exactly such 
dishonest practices into the settled conviction that honesty 
for the employer is as impossible as the eye of the needle 
for the rich. The strange thing is that the employer who 
is entirely persuaded of his own honesty fails too often to 
understand how any of his employees can be so hard-hearted 
and ungrateful as to question his motives. At the same 
time, if he himself runs into a small number of disagree- 
able experiences with his workers, he is quite as quick to 
come to certain definite and adamantine convictions with 
regard to all employees everywhere as is the worker after a 
few unpleasant experiences with this or that employer. In 
either case, that conviction, built though it ordinarily is on 
a highly illogical, because highly emotional, foundation 
constitutes a veritable Chinese wall for preventing both 
groups from having a fair go at each other and each other's 
confidence. 



210 FULL UP AND FED UP 

Yesterday's travelling, by the way, demonstrated in a 
new manner how this difficulty of getting on with each 
other is connected with the desire of every one of us to keep 
tight hold, throughout every waking moment of the day, of 
the feeling that we are holding our own and getting a cer- 
tain amount of respect and recognition from the other 
fellow. After I had been told for the fourth or fifth time 
to change cars in order to make the trip here, I came close 
to a little '^run-in'' with one of the station guards. He ap- 
peared to me at the time extremely officious. Now that 
IVe cooled off, it looks as though the chief trouble was 
that a stranger is extremely likely to feel touchy and easily 
aggrieved in a strange land. In the nature of the case his 
ignorance leads him to a sense of helplessness if not of 
actual shame for his childish ignorance in finding his way 
through a new country. The result in lost ^^face'^ is much 
the same as if he had lost his self-confidence and so in- 
creased his temper and touchiness by reason of fatigue in- 
stead of by inexperience — ^with the chances good for a few 
explosions of irritability which affect international attitudes 
and relationships instead of the more usual jars within the 
circle of the factory or the family. 

At a number of stations men and boys, just out from the 
collieries for the Saturday-afternoon holiday, got on with 
their grimy clothes and black faces for riding up to their 
homes in the next town or so. Several of the boys are very 
sore that the London papers are making so much fuss about 
their votes, as though they were certain to favor a strike 
in order to get a bit of excitement even though that means 
pushing the country toward the brink of disaster. Both 
their own thirst for the vacation which the strike might 
give and also the reported carelessness of the union officials 
in giving out and collecting the votes are being grossly ex- 
aggerated, they are certain, by the daily press. 

^^ 'Tis for our fawthers to do the decidinV^ said one of the 



MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 211 

blackest of them. ^' So I rolled mine up. 'Twon't be counted 
one way or another.'^ 

The same type of boy — many of them scarcely turned 
fourteen and incUned, apparently, to be small for their 
years — ^was in the crowd last night at what seemed a com- 
bination of carnival, fair, and market. With their girl 
friends, still wearing their hair down their backs, they made 
part of the great crowds that patronized the swing or the 
merry-go-round with its labored but melodious grinding of 
the popular tunes, or else stood up to the counters with the 
flaring torches to eat with the help of fingers and much 
vinegar from the great piles of cold pickled tripe, pigs^ 
knuckles and toes, or cows^ heels. The girls were young — 
surprisingly young — ^and especially when the swings rose 
highest or the merry-go-round went merriest, were sufr 
ficiently prodigal and friendly with their young waists and 
arms. In a number of cases, it must be said with regret, the 
boys were staggering, particularly at ten after the pubs 
were closed and the lights began to dim and the crowds, 
with their wooden-soled mine shoes and many a cheery 
''Good neet!'^ (good night) began to thin out— leaving 
much depleted the piles of cookies, candies, vegetables, 
shoes, stockings, etc., etc. 

While the crowd was at its height a sightseer was bound 
to follow in the direction of a street where, among a number 
of pubs, the sign of '^ Musical Tavern" supported the im- 
pression of ^the ears that ^'a good time was being had by 
one and all." It certainly is a popular place, in spite 
of the fact that the Muse suffers from much the same 
troubles that afflict the speechmaker on Bath Street in 
Glasgow. 

Over by the piano a perfectly sober and spotlessly neck- 
mufflered miner with a shining face — except for that thin, 
telltale ring of unreachable grime close to the inmost cir- 
cle of his eyes — waits as the woman accompanist gives the 



212 FULL UP AND FED UP 

chord and the voice of a friend calls: ^Tle-a-se, gentlemen, 
ple-a-se!^' 

''1 of-ten think of Mo-ther/' 

So far so good. The miner evidently has a good voice 
and the prospect looks good that most of his audience will 
soon be weeping, especially those already helped farthest 
on toward the stage of tears by the brimming glasses set 
down hurriedly before them by the overworked and almost 
breathless, sweet-faced — also pink shirt-waisted and red- 
beribboned — ^young barmaid. But by this time the inter- 
est of one whose sentiment has already got the better of 
him is on the job of helping the singer: 

'^ Thank ye, gents, one and all!'^ he roars out to every- 
body. 

It's all off! The miner has to start over again — ^just at 
the instant, unluckily, that his friend — his sober friend — ^im- 
plores with another: ^^ Please I Order, gents, order !^' 

'^I of-ten think of Mo-ther '' 

^^I thank ye, gents. One and all, I thank ye!'' roars the 
drunken listener. 

Whereupon friend, singer, pianist, and drunken admirer 
all go ahead without paying any attention to each other — 
and all the rest of the crowd gives itself to its glasses while 
the big red-faced and red-mufflered fellow with the leather 
leggings — ^he was selling sheep there in the main square in 
the afternoon — stops the barmaid long enough to whisper 
some of those confidential importances of which a drunken 
man seems always full, and the black-haired old woman with 
the few big teeth and the many gums and stumps — ^also the *^ I 
crumpled-up millinery of unfortunate but still struggling ^ 
respectability — laughs her pitiful and maudlin laugh till her 
tears are running down the back of her more sober gentle- 
man escort against whom she leans. 

After so much noise and excitement this morning was a 
long expanse of empty-streeted silence and serenity. To- 



MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 213 

night it has been fairly active again after the early closing 
of the Sunday evening session of the pubs, with fairly numer- 
ous drunken boys and men among the crowds — ^also, for 
some reason, a surprising number of young girls with lots 
of hair braids on their shoulders and a good deal of boy in 
their eyes. A long walk took me out into the lanes by the 
hedges where the moon and the pleasant meadows appeared 
to be exercising a very potent influence upon all who had 
been lucky enough to plan a meeting, making it, on the 
whole, no place for a soUtary and lonesome husband. 

America seems to afford no opportunity for rendezvous 
quite comparable to this combination of meadow and moon, 
lane and hedge, darkness and limitless sky. It would be 
interesting to know whether this has anything to do with a 
certain realism in the writings of the modern school of 
English novelists which we Americans find unexpected. 

Here's hoping that to-morrow sees some progress toward 
getting at least some of the local opinion on the matter of 
coal; it is certainly being taken by the country in general 
as a burning subject indeed. At any rate, getting the cars 
to the mines so as to permit regular operation appears to 
be no problem here, because, doubtless, of the distribution 
of the mines and the consequent shortness of the haul in a 
small country. A few days ago a Welsh colHery was men- 
tioned as laying off 2,000 men on account of lack of ^Hrucks.'^ 
American papers could hardly print anything else if they 
were to record the same misfortune in our mines from day 
to day. 

Monday, August 30th, 
Barnsley, Yorkshire. 
It's amazing the way the day has supported exactly the 
inSpression given Saturday and Sunday by the hillside's re- 
assuring combination of hedgerow, church spire, coal tipple, 
and cottage chimney. Strangely enough, the only jarring 
notes came from the pessimism of some of the owners. One 



214 FULL UP AND FED UP 

of these represents several generations of mine managers. 
He thinks that his industry has already gone over onto the 
basis of practical nationalization — ^with the chances against 
its ever coming back. 

^^rd be jolly glad to sell all our properties to the govern- 
ment to-morrow. Then I'd ^hop it' off to the Argentine 
or some place where governments give men a freer and hap- 
pier hand." 

Another — more in the nature of a self-made man — is 
equally certain that there is no way out of the country's 
coal troubles except to go through a lot of panicky times 
which can be counted on finally to result in lower wages and 
a more humble worker — ^much the same thing that is being 
said, doubtless, at this same moment, by many of those 
American employers who are called ^'hard boiled." 

Still another of much the same group believes that most 
of the fault lies upon the employer's side, even though 
that is the side with which he is actively connected. 

^'Most of the bickerings back and forth are for political 
purposes — ^whether by labor or capital. In it all the gov- 
ernment simply watches its chance to turn every possible 
eventuahty into profit and prestige for itself. That is its 
entire policy — that and raising the prices of coal and every- 
thing else. For instance, take this telephone. It's awful! 
One 'phone and one branch cost fifty pounds the year. 
Two regular 'phones cost one hundred pounds — here in this 
small place! How can progressive industry stand such 
strains as that?" 

All of these seem to agree that the laboring man all but 
resists opportunities to put himself into a better group or 
to raise the standard of his living. One man told of a miner 
who found himself having to pay what he considered very 
large taxes because his earnings — for the first time in his 
life — were running pretty well over fifty pounds a quarter. 
As a result he definitely decided to earn less. So some 



MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 215 

weeks now he works only three days. '^You see, he's not 
used to paying taxes and feels that it is just plain robbery. 
The only way to stop it is to earn less !'' 

'^The Urban Council here pays the fare of boys back and 
forth from the neighboring towns for taking certain tech- 
nical courses in the night schools here. The council has 
been anxious to get as many boys to make use of this ad- 
vantage as possible. But after all we've done the boys 
taking it in the district number only nine!" 

The surprise of the day was to get such good and hopeful 
words from the workers. '^The best employers in the 'ole 
of merry England, we got right 'ere in the district/' was 
the way an old and retired employee put it as he nursed a 
rheumatic leg in the kitchen where I found him. The house 
certainly looks thrifty and comfortable with its nice httle 
pantry garden in the back and an ^^ allotment," or war 
garden plot, as we would call it, across the alley in the rear. 

''Yes, me father offered me more education and, like the 
foolish one I was, I said no. Well, ye see, the crowd — that 
is all me boys and pals here in the place — ^was going regular 
underground when they was twelve. Of course, we all be- 
gun at trappin' — that's mindin' the mine doors, y' under- 
stand? A twelvepence it was we got, the day of twelve 
hours. Never did we see the light until Sunday — that 
early we 'ad to be in and that late out, the six days of the 
week. I'U never forget me first pay. They gaye me two 
shillin'. Every step o' the way 'ome I ran to show it to me 
mother! Of course, in them days, a pound of sugar you 
could get for three ha'pence and for meat, well, for a prime 
and special cut, y' understand, 'twould be sixpence the 
pound. Of course, too, the seams 'ere are good — three feet 
five and four feet six. . . . 

"Since twenty years never a drop 'as passed me Kps. 
Before that 'twas twenty or thirty shillin' the week that 
floated down me throat in the beer an' all. 'Tis likely for 



216 FULL UP AND FED UP 

that that I don't /ave ter work now — ^with eleven children 
to carry on fer me, though for ten year me wife would be 
no good — the rheumatism 'as 'er worse 'n me/' 

Among the most thoughtful minded women seen in Eng- 
land I think I would place the wife of a union official whose 
view-point was, perhaps, in a way, more representative of 
the district's workers than if her husband had been speak- 
ing. She was in school until she was eighteen and has both 
a lively and an intelligent interest in everything going on in 
the country as well as in the district. Both her father and 
her husband have been or are union officials. 

^^No, I'd say the Bolshies are here but they have no fol- 
lowing. The reason is that our employers have lived here 
all their lives and their fathers before them. Every one 
trusts them. And you can see the kind of houses the min- 
ers five in, with rent in the town from six and sixpence up 
to nine shillings for the newest, also for the several hundred 
soon to be built. Besides that there is free coal from the 
mine — eight or ten tons of it, I suppose, in the year. 

^'Even the boys here are voting against this strike, 
partly because they think they're getting along pretty well 
and partly because the Miners' Federation let them down 
last year when this district thought it had a grievance and 
went out by itself. My husband gives out the ballots 
most carefully, I assure you. The results are carefully 
guarded in every way. How it is in other districts of the 
country, I don't know. . . . The government seems to me 
just stupid. My cousin is trying to go out to join her 
brothers and sisters in the colonies. ^ With all the overplus 
of workers and especially of women here, you'd think the 
government would help, but only last week she almost de- 
cided to give it up — that troublesome they were at the 
Emigration Office and all." 

Unfortunately Vice-President Smith of the Miners' 
Federation is not at his home here. One of his assistants, 



MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 217 

however, is apparently to be counted on for straight think- 
ing — ^and kindly. 

^^It's the distrust on both sides, so we all beUeve, that 
makes any further efforts to work out the present situation 
on any modification of the present system impossible. 
Masters and men have come to such a point of suspicion 
and misunderstanding that the mining industry is at a dead 
standstill. The only way out is nationalization — an en- 
tirely new stand all the way 'round. It's the only way to 
save the industry. Perhaps nationalized mines have not 
succeeded very well in other countries where they have been 
tried, but this will be the first time that nationalization will 
come as a direct result of the workers in the industry want- 
ing it themselves. That will make a great difference. For 
one thing that will allow the better technical equipment 
which the mines must have if the men are to keep up pro- 
duction. Production per man has been decreasing as the 
operators claim, but you see that's because most of our 
British mines are old and the equipment and engineering 
have got farther and farther out of date. It's not strange, 
either, that the owners hesitate to spend the necessary mil- 
lions for improving them, with the threat of nationaUza- 
tion over their heads. And, you know, we miners our- 
selves don't agree as to whether the owners should be paid 
well or even at all for their properties. 

^^The Joint Council plan proposed by the government — 
you know, where owners and miners would have represen- 
tation on a mine committee and then on district and na- 
tional committees and councils — has not worked well in 
experience. Partly because, I'm bound to say, the operator 
is amazingly short-sighted in so many cases. One committee 
here in the district, for instance, assessed fines on all the 
absentees — ^all the men who stayed away] from work. The 
result was to lessen it to a point quite amazing. But one 
day the fine was assessed on the company for some of th? 



218 FULL UP AND FED UP 

officials. My word ! — what did they do but refuse to pay 
it! A fine, mind you, of ten shiUings! Of course, that 
broke up the whole thing. I dare say the company lost 
hundreds and hundreds of pounds from the absences that 
began the next morning after the plan — ^and with it the 
committee — smashed. 

^^A higher standard of living for our miners — that is the 
job to which the whole country and especially the union 
officials should give themselves. Always it is higher wages — 
higher wages: that is the men's demand. But unless the 
workers themselves get to living better, either production 
falls because of the lessened amount of work or else the men 
give themselves to more gambling and drinking. Of course, 
the men themselves must want this higher standard of 
living or all the efforts of their leaders or their fellows are 
in vain. Just how that is to be accomplished it is hard to 
say. But I do know that the leaders must resist somehow 
the pressure always brought on them for higher wages with- 
out respect to larger production or to the enjoyment of 
better and wider living.'' 

This last seems to me very much the crux of the whole sit- 
uation. Certainly, the district proves the influence of such a 
higher standard of living upon the men's value both as 
workers and as citizens. That, in turn, has much to do, 
doubtless, with the feeling of the local district leaders, noted 
as they are throughout the country for their reasonable- 
ness. It is impossible to believe that such testimonies as 
to-day's could have been encountered among workers in, 
for instance, the Scotch coal area. There, in fact, right in 
the country where Robert Smillie was born and raised, 
28,000 families out of a total of 35,000 are said still to be 
living in one-room houses. In that case, it is quite con- 
ceivable that ^^Bob" grew up in conditions which made it 
extremely easy to set fire to the tinder of his boyish pur- 
poses and idealisms by the stories that might easily have 



MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 219 

been told him by his father and grandfather. Such stories 
would doubtless have reflected such conditions as are de- 
scribed in a book given me by one of the Welsh mine owners 
and operators as representing a fair and, on the whole, con- 
servative statement of the British coal problem.* As there 
related, a parliamentary comimission of long ago discov- 
ered that in 1842 the mines were quite innocent of anything 
like the ventilation the mines know to-day. The men were 
usually, therefore, entirely naked, oftentimes lying for the 
long twelve and fourteen hour day on their sides, getting 
down the coal out of an eighteen-inch seam ! When women 
were not employed the business of dragging the tubs of 
coal from the workers out to the shaft was often done by 
girls of nine or ten and eleven, wearing nothing but a shirt 
and dragging the ^^ coals" by means of a heavy chain which 
ran from the iron belt around their waists out between their 
legs as they crawled on hands and knees through passage- 
ways of only twenty or thirty inches' height If 

Some of the children were found by the commission to 
be working ankle-deep in water or crawhng through pools. 
Once a little girl of seven years of age, who was supposed 
to be watching an air gate upon the proper working of which 
the safety of all in the mine might have depended, was found 
asleep, her lamp having gone out and the rats having eaten 
her meal of bread and cheese. , 

In addition there seems to have been quite general in 
certain areas the practice of apprenticing — ^by w^hich paupers 
or orphans were put completely in the power of the ^ ^ butty '^ 
— doubtless the original ^^ buddy'' — who was a contractor 

♦"The British Coal Industry," by Gilbert Stone. E. P. Button & Co., 
New York. J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., London and Toronto. 

t "Thus Mary Barnett, aged 14: 'I work always without stockings, or 
shoes, or trousers; I wear nothing but my shirt; I have to go up to the head- 
ings (i. e., coal-face) with the men; they are all naked there; I am got well used 
to that, and don't care much about it; I was afraid at first and did not like 
it.'" (Pp. 23 and 24.) 



220 FULL UP AND FED UP 

for the owner and, as such, was in practical control of the 
working force. Between eight and nine years these boys 
were sent on trial from the workhouses or poor-farms and, 
if satisfactory, were bound as apprentices for twelve years — 
in spite of the fact that there is little in the coal-mines to 
learn requiring more than a few months of practice and ex- 
perience. Naturally the treatment which these boys re- 
ceived at the hands of some of their ^^ butties'' makes most 
unpleasant reading. They were given no wages of any kind 
and were simply kept in clothes and food by their masters, 
besides being given the most difficult and dangerous of 
tasks. 

It is easy to believe that part of Britain's troubles at this 
moment are the heritage of such a black and dreadful his- 
tory. What is most important to observe, however, is that 
this history evidently ^^ carries on" to-day for the most 
part, only where the blackness itself still continues in the 
shape of bad living conditions or of other unhappinesses years 
and years after the joint efforts of ParUament, employers, 
and unionized employees have succeeded in putting an end to 
such miseries in the working conditions underground and in 
denying such labor to women and children. Doubtless the 
mines in this district were, in the old days, quite as bad as 
in Scotland, yet it is Scotland's one-room houses of to-day 
that have given the movement much of its fervor in the 
person of the crusader, rather than the usual type of local 
leader. Bob Smillie. J. H. Thomas is certainly right in 
feeling that the shortage of houses in the country generally 
is a contributing factor to ^ immorality, vice, Bolshevism, 
and the spread of social unrest." 

More and more the criticism of the papers and also of 
the government officials is directing itself against the de- 
cision by the miners that such-and-such a price must be 
charged by the government and such-and-such limits must 
be set upon the government's profits, even though these are 



MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 221 

in lieu of the ordinary taxes paid by the other individually 
controlled industries. It seems highly questionable that the 
miners can stand out for the right of the workers in any in- 
dustry to determine what taxes that industry will pay as 
well as what prices and wages it will estabUsh. Certainly 
the whole country seems pretty generally backing the gov- 
ernment on its insistence that at least the matter of taxa- 
tion is something which the government itself must be free 
to determine. 

It's a shame not to have time to become a worker here 
and get the feel of the underground — ^and the extraordinary 
confidence and heart-to-heart conversation favored by the 
close contact of the filling of the tram there at the face. 
But, with the way the conversations with the workers on 
the streets and in the pubs have supported the words of the 
leaders and the others, it seems better to start for the steel 
mills of Sheffield. 

It would be enjoyable also to ^^ stick around'' longer if 
only to get closer to the Yorkshire dialect, which must be 
behind the '^good neet!" (good night) or ^' gimme a leet" 
(light) so frequently heard on the streets. One householder 
tells of the perplexity produced in the family by a York- 
shire maid who came to ask : ^^Maunie mak shet?" After 
some moments, and the calUng in of an older inhabitant, it 
was discovered that she was asking: ^' Shall I make shut?" 
that is, close the doors and windows for the night. 

fhe local paper adds the country's usual jab at govern- 
ment service by teUing of the man who boasted of '^follow- 
ing pubHc work" and being asked if he ever overtook it. 

Sheffield, 

Thursday, September 2nd. 
^'FuU up!" was certainly the word here a night or two 
ago when the train got in from Barnsley at what looked like 
a sufficiently early hour for finding a bed, but wasn't. The 



222 FULL UP AND FED UP 

daily need of making the circuit of the gates in search of a 
job, and the clothes that go with that necessity, made im- 
possible any of the first or second class hotels. The crowded 
condition of the town just about made everything else 
equally closed. In spite of the help of numerous ^^ bobbies,'' 
several advertisements, a lot of carfare, and an immense 
amount of leg work, all efforts brought no words more con- 
soling than the ubiquitous ^^FuU up! Not a bed in the 
^ouse!'' with occasionally an additional ^^ Sorry.'' Finally, 
after nearly twenty askings, it was just sheer goodness of 
heart that made a landlord of a commercial house, with the 
help of his two intelligent-faced and kindly dispositioned 
daughters, give me a pair of comforts on an antique lounge 
in a third-story hallway — Si very open-faced bedroom it 
was as the maids passed along to their early duties. Cer- 
tainly few of their guests ever made a larger return in grati- 
tude. The question is whether I can prevail upon them to 
allow so tough-looking a customer to hang around a place 
which, though it is far from first class, is still miles above the 
status of a man so evidently in need of a job. 

A day here, however, certainly makes it look as though 
the factories were just as crowded as the boarding-houses 
and rooming-places. ^^ Naught doin' but muckin' abaht.'* 
That seems to be the situation of the men here out of jobs. 
'^Awnd there's 'undreds 'ere that's bein' turned off now, 
too." 

Over in a very slummy part of town — the weekly rent 
they said was ^'six bob and a tanner," that is, six and six- 
pence — the front rooms, as seen through the open door > 
and over the well-soapstoned threshold, were crowded with 
a red-covered table, a fireplace with a teapot sitting near the 
coals, a bureau chest of drawers, sideboard, — wax, flowers 
under a large glass, a few chromos, not to mention the cat, 
with perhaps a dog also, before the fireplace. For ten shil- 
lings, they said, a fellow could get a regular house with a 



MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 223 

bath. The factories near by represent a very old school 
of both construction and production. From the glimpses 
through grimy windows permitted to a jobless man, the 
dim lights, the smoke, and the flaming metal being cut or 
pounded into such things as knives or hammers and axe- 
heads, make a pretty unattractive picture. Indeed, the al- 
ways depressing effects of the refusals of the job, coupled 
with the unattractive interiors and the cold rain or fog and 
mud of the district, put my state of mind away down below 
anything like par. Once I tried to pass a brick wall that 
made the side of a furnace in one of the factories, I found 
myself backed up against its splendid warmth taking note of 
its surrounding geography with the thought in my mind: 
'^ 'Twill be fine to come back here if the winter finds me still 
out of work !'' So far can a fellow's mood run the current 
of his thinking and planning out of its normal channel ! A 
few minutes later it was a huge pleasure to notice that the 
working men were accepting my plea for a job as a man who 
^' 'ad just coom down from up Middlesbrough way." 

'^ 'E says 'e wants a general laborer's job," my friend ex- 
plained to another, adding that ^^as a fellow worker 'ere 
from Middlesbrough we 'ad ought to do all we can. Still 
there's almost no bloo-ody chawnce. They're stoppin' them 
ofif now by 'undreds, with 'undreds more expecting to be 
stopped this week — ^with the engineers' strike an' all. 'Im 
as were 'ere just lawst night were sayin' thot a mon with no 
job to-day is only like wot most of the world will be soon 
enough." 

As we had a glass together in the pub, I found it too late 
to explain that I was an American — for under the belief 
that I was British they had made their comment that 
'^America, I see by the papers, is after rulin' the seas noow 
and will be wantin' every bloo-ody ha'penny from the war." 
What was worse, however, was that being thought a Brit- 
isher made impossible, without danger of disagreeable com- 



224 FULL UP AND FED UP 

plications, the asking of any questions about the general 
situation. So I find it best to be taken for the American I 
am — the American worker in hard luck. 

The best of their suggestions was to try the gas-works. 
There, unfortunately, I found later, they had just taken on 
eight laborers that afternoon — ^at three pounds ten or 
twelve the week, with board for laborers costing generally 
twenty-five shillings. Luckily, I was able to answer that I 
was used to shovelling and that I thought I could stand the 
loading of '^coal and coke all day, for, after all,'' as I added, 
''coal is fairish-light after the iron stone I'd been used to 
handlin' in America." On the way out after my discourag- 
ing talk with the gaffer, a worker was glad to show with 
considerable pride how the gas is made, though he was sad 
to think that ''more and more by machinery it is, and that 
means stoppin' off more men." 

"So easy it is now to turn on a leet 'ere in the 'omes of 
Sheffield and give never a thought 'ow it must be made and 
washed and scrubbed and stored and all — never a thought 
where it cooms from or 'ow. Seven million cubic feet there 
is over there in that tank. As ye can see, something is 
bound to 'appen in Sheffield w'en we men 'ere stops off. . . . 
WuU, try to-morrer — a good place it is for ye all winter — 
awnd warm!" 

Mighty little pleasure a couple of boys in the parcel-room 
^t the station seemed to be getting out of their jobs, partly 
because of the misbehavings of the public. 

"Everybody 'grouses' because we charge a thruppence 
for a package now instead of a tuppence, when everything 
else in the 'ole country 'as gone up 150 per cent instead of 
our 50 per cent. 'Tis the red tape of government that for- 
bids us 'elpin' people on the platforms like we used to do. 
The rules forbid it now, because, you see, it lessens the 
number of jobs. From what I can see 'ere we got a full 30 
per cent more men than we need around the station. Of 



MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 225 

course, that gives everybody easy work but it raises the 
taxes — and there you are!'' 

Even in such a disreputable pub as I loafed in last night, 
the conversation seems to be mainly that of men who can 
count upon steady work and fairish homes. Certainly the 
bartender felt his responsibility for making the place a sort 
of conversational salon rather than a mere place for drinking. 

^^W'at the bloo-ody 'ell is this Irish mayor a-starvin' o' 
'imself for? I'd like to see 'em set grapes and such afoor 
me ! Besides, there's no sense to it. Carlisle, 'e goes in fer 
'ard labor and then 'e gets out and talks in the streets and 
gets in again, but 'e doesn't commit suicide and 'e does 'elp 
'is cause." 

''I see a judge says if the plaintiff 'as the gout, then 'e's 
rich enough to pay 'is rates," says another. 

^^A gaffer 'as naught in a union meetin'," avers another 
when the everlasting question arises as to the probabiUty 
of the machinists' strike. ^^Goin' back like as not, 'e would, 
to tell 'is mawsters. Bloo-ody unreasonable they are, these 
mechanic chaps and these bloo-ody miners the sime." 

^^0' course there been no anti-rent strike doon this wye. 
W'y should there be? Rent is the only thing of all that 
'asn't gone up at least 100 per cent or more." 

The strike in Glasgow — and Scotland — was a pretty big 
affair, with a procession and trouble only narrowly averted, 
according to the papers. On the whole, however, Scotland 
appeared to feel the effort a good deal of a failure. 

This going about from plant to plant — '^Well, what is 
it?" just like in America — ^and from pubhc house to public 
house is a big lot harder than it looks, mainly, I guess, be- 
cause hard luck and hopelessness have to be my passport 
and stock in trade as it were — ^with it getting, without de- 
lay, into my very vitals. The surprising thing is the num- 
ber of factories in which it is possible to enter without diffi- 
culty in the search of the gaffer — ^and the job he may be 



226 FULL UP AND FED UP 

able to give. To-morrow the route must lie farther out of 
the city where the newer and better, also bigger, plants are 
said to be. Meanwhile the most interesting person in Shef- 
field to date is the blind newspaper man who stands upon a 
near-by corner. 

^^In one way these poor fellows that have been blinded 
by the war or perhaps on their jobs, you know, are worse 
off than I am. Their lives, you see, have been blasted by 
knowing what they^re missing now. I don't. You tell me 
about a blue sky. That means nothing to me — nor does a 
yard or a mile. Still I am getting about by myseK — though 
I will say that the worst experience I ever had was that 
first month or two when I started to get about alone. 
Never will I forget it, I assure you. 

''Of course, my two children have good eyes. Why? 
Why, because we gave them good care and didn't show 
them to the neighbors. Ah, yes, 'tis that that makes the 
trouble. You see, here the first thing done with a new 
baby is to take it out around to the neighbors — ^yes, even 
on the coldest of nights. Believe it or no, but I've seen it 
many and many times. You see, it's^a great event and they 
think it is honoring the poor young chap — even though it 
may be ruining his eyes, just as it did mine. 

''Yes, I tried handing my customer the paper with my 
fingers while he dropped the pennies into my palm, but 
expensive experience has taught me that every coin must 
pass the inspection of my fingers — ^not my hand — before I 
can make sure of letting go the paper. I'm sorry. Still, 
stealing a paper from a bhnd man's not as mean as during 
the war raids. You know, it sometimes happened in Lon- 
don that the very ones who were taken in off the streets 
from the bombs and all to the shelter of a roof or a cellar 
for the night turned around and stole their papers from their 
hosts — that is, the records that] gave them their war allow- 
ances and so on. 



MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 227 

^^ During the war, of course, I could not return any unsold 
papers; I can now. But in those days if your supply gave 
out before those who worked late came along, then they'd 
buy elsewhere and you lost their patronage, didn't you? 
Yes. Then if you had too many the next day you lost you^r 
money. So you lost either way, and there you are !] 

''No, I'm against labor running the government — you 
see, they don't read and think enough. I find they buy 
mostly the Herald — and not for its labor news but for its 
sporting news. Still I don't like the coalition government 
either. I'm against arbitration, too, because it never set- 
tles anything — it only compromises, and all matters are 
either right or wrong — not half right or half wrong. That's 
why I'm against the unions, too. Mainly they're too sel- 
fish. We should all find our best good by helping the other 
fellow. 'Twon't hurt us, will it, if we help him ? No. And, 
of course, the same should be between nations as between 
us single individuals, shouldn't it? 

''Well, I hope some day to get some education in music. 
You see, I can always tell what key people talk in — or play 
or sing. I seem to have, somehow, absolute pitch. I 
only wish that a musical college might give me a chance. 
Well, good morning, and please look me up again, won't 
you? Yes." 

If you don't keep looking at his ball-less sockets, you have 
to make an effort to figure that he is losing very much out 
of life, considering the range of his thinking and the whole- 
someness of his feeling. The question is, perhaps, whether 
he really is missing anything after all. Certainly, at least, 
he has a very great and apparently a very considerate 
cUentele. I can imagine they all enjoy both the tone of 
his voice and the sincerity of the greeting he gives to every 
one who buys his wares. 



228 FULL UP AND FED UP 

Saturday, Sept. 4th, 
Sheffield. 

The fear of the lay-off sure to follow upon the strikes 
threatened both by the electrical trades unions and by the 
coal-miners hangs heavier upon the district than the usual 
smoke — ^and smoke consumers would be one of the best 
improvements conceivable for this whole district. 

'^Everybody's striking around the whole bloo-ody coun- 
try if you don't say good morning in the right tone of 
voice/' according to one of the men in a huge and modern 
smelting establishment where it was possible to loaf a num- 
ber of hours in between occasional inquiries for work at the 
hands of a gaffer — and equally occasional refusals. 

'^ They're discharging even the foremen over there," 
said a young girl clerk in a grocery-store near by later. 
''Nothing to do but this all day" — ^with her hands on her 
hips. ''They're pushing all the luck away from themselves 
and from us by their everlasting ^striking. For myself, I 
was privately tutored for typing. Lost my place when 
things got slow. Now there's no chance. Every girl in 
the country is studying for typing, so there's quite too many. 
I see by the paper that the Labor Ministry says there's al- 
ready too many women also in dressmaking, millinery, and 
upholstery. Still I want to get away from this kind of 
work. . . . No, there's not a bathroom in the neighborhood, 
though the houses are pretty new, too. I think all houses 
should have them, don't you?" 

"If there's to be a strike, 'twill be a bloody revolution, 
thot's sure," came from several workers outside the gates 
of one of the district's largest plants, where, by the way, a 
number of bookies were doing a very prosperous business at 
the noon-hour either with the men themselves or with 
Johnny and Mary who had been sent with the necessary 
shilling or half-crown together with the folded-up piece of 
paper carrying the scribbled name of the day's favorite 



MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 229 

horse, ^'Tell 'im ^e's not to let any one see it, missy/ ^ one 
youngster was cautioned as the bookie gave her covertly a 
special dope sheet. 

'^ 'Tis the bloody lads that's doin' it, naught else. Of 
course, these miners works 'ard, but they're selfish and 
avaricious, as I sees it. I'd 'op it quick for Canada except 
for me mother, but 'ere, as it is, I near gi' up me wages in 
fines awnd stoppages. No smokin', no this, and no thot — 
awnd the 'Lloyd George' (health and unemployment insur- 
ance premiums taken out of the pay) . Especially since we've 
only two turns the week 'tis naught now of the good screw 
we 'ad in war times. An' w'en we went down Monday to 
find a plice roonin' full like, y' know, they tellt us they're 
full up!" 

''The radicals are gettin' 'em these un'appy days when 
the work there is looks like runnin' out," said one of the 
local officials of the general workers union, after he had told 
of the amazing variety of benefits paid its men for total 
or partial disablement, lockouts or strikes, victimization, 
wrongful discharge, funeral, etc., etc. "I used to be a rad- 
ical myself so I can understand when I think about it how 
every labor leader 'as to suffer from the distrust of 'is men. 
Still the men here should 'ave more wages. Back in 1914 
the standard was below the proper level, and though we're 
better off now than then, still the miners and other unskilled 
men are gettin' too much in comparison. Perhaps the new 
mayor will 'elp us, though most of the workers think 'e's 
too conservative. He and many others of us still beUeve 
in gettin' on by collective bargaining, with the strikes and 
all that, but the majority is more for political action — ^also, 
of course, direct action. . . . The Welshmen? Oh, they 
always act first and think afterward — just the opposite of 
your Yorkshire miner friends." 

It is easy to beUeve that thousands of workers here are 
extremely grateful that the city is lucky enough to suffer 



230 FULL UP AND FED UP 

from the great clouds of smoke, for these at least mean work 
— ^jobs. The newspapers, however, certainly do give sup- 
port for a cloudy mood in what seems to me a slumpy 
Sheffield Saturday, properly so called. The Manchester 
and Liverpool printers are rebelling against their own 
national union by going out on strike. Those papers are 
now being printed in London or elsewhere. A crisis appears 
to be threatening in the pottery trade in its relations with 
its 70,000 men making additional wage demands. In 
Scotland two unions — the National Union of Railway Men 
and the Blacksmiths Union — are at swords' points. The 
Yorkshire farmers are striking for six pounds a week — 
much to the disgust of my steel-making friends who get 
more — ^^but look at our work in the 'eat and all!" 

In spite of all these difficulties one of the leading steel 
employers here gave me his opinion that crushing the 
unions would be the very last conceivable thing for the 
employer or the company to desire, least of all in steel, 
where union and employer have each other's confidence. 

^'It is inefficiency and the ^go-slow' policy on the job as 
practised by many non-union men, as well as unionists, that 
threatens the well-being of the district's industry and work- 
ers. For instance, we make a bid for some of our products, 
estimating seventy hours of labor on it. The men take one 
hundred and twenty. That means we must ask higher 
prices of our customers. Our customers, in turn, must ask 
more from their customers, and these happen to be the pub- 
lic. So the cost of Hving is made higher. The wages we 
pay are higher, yes, but the worker has not earned more in 
buying power. Also, we stand a greater chance of missing 
the next contract when we bid again, and then the district's 
workers lose the chance of doing the job. Here in Eng- 
land we are the most individualistic nation in the world. 
If we could add to that a greater invididual productive- 
ness and efficiency, we could be paramount in the trade of 
all the world. 



MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 231 

'^No. It's not unions that stand in the way, but the oc- 
casional selfish or self-seeking leader near the top or the less 
important leader who has been made unhappy and venge- 
ful perhaps by some employer's carelessness. Sometimes, 
too, these second-rate leaders drink too much during im- 
portant conferences for settling difficult points. But I am 
sure the way out is not to think of putting industry under 
the government's management. While serving in London 
during the war, in charge of important government ac- 
tivities, I saw men being promoted practically as the direct 
result of their inefficiency. You see, the laws forbid any 
one being given the sack without the most elaborate ar- 
rangements. It also forbids a person's being changed to 
any other job which pays less than his present position. 
Accordingly, you see, when a department head wants to 
rid himself of some poor stick he gives notice to other de- 
partment heads of his desire to transfer this worker at not 
less than such-and-such a salary. Many times I've seen 
these men, after weeks and weeks of waiting for a transfer 
at the same figure, finally, transferred to a much higher 
salary!" 

An American business man here has also been keeping 
his eyes and ears open: 

^^For years and years visitors here from America and the 
Continent have figured that Sheffield, with its old dark 
factories and its old hand processes, would last about three 
months longer in competition with the cutlery manufac- 
turers of the rest of the world. Well, I've been here a long 
time, and as near as I can make out Sheffield's old industries 
are going just a little stronger than ever. You see, the 
cutlery workers here are mostly high-skilled men — the best 
artisans in the world for the tempering of special steels — on 
the same job, lots of them, for generations — father and son 
and grandson, all together. One of the oldest firms here, 
with the most antique methods, exports just about twice 



232 FULL UP AND FED UP 

as much as all the newer chaps combined with all their new 
plants. Lately there has been a little opposition to the 
better working conditions urged upon some of the old 
manufacturers because they say it will make the costs too 
far above American steel. That, of course, tends to lower 
American stock with the workers, and now that America 
has gotten out from under the fine things which President 
Wilson said, America is not so popular as it was, though the 
farther down the line you go the more popula^r it is. One 
of the quips on the stage has been: 

'' 'Jack, how fast does sound travel?^ 

" 'Oh, I should say about five seconds to the mile J 

" 'Well, how far is America from here?' 

" 'Oh, about 3,200 or 3,300 miles.' 

" 'Well, there's something wrong with your mathematics 
then, old chap, or why is it that the bugle blown here in 
1914 wasn't heard over there until April, 1917?' " 

He believes that there is justice in the frequent claim 
that drinking is not so heavy as it used to be. He is not so 
certain that the Char-a-banc trips are to be accounted an 
educational factor, considering the advantage taken of the 
fact that British law permits travellers to be given liquor 
even in the hours when the pubs are closed to the ordinary 
citizens. He also feels that a tremendous amount of time 
and thought is given to racing; his experience did not per- 
mit him to add any others to my list as made in a recent 
shop: '^Stable Whispers," "The Racing Springer," "Pad- 
dock Secrets," "The Early Bird," etc., etc. Nor to my 
recollection of the great piles of publications for the women as 
lately noticed in a news-stand: "Peg's Paper — The Price of 
a Kiss," "Home Mirror — Her Hateful Lover," "Forget- 
Me-Not Novels," "Smart Fiction," "Mizpah Novels— 
A Young Wife's Secret," etc., etc. 

So I guess, on the whole, I'll not worry about SheflSeld's 
ability to take care of herself or, for that matter, of England 



MIDST THE MINERS AND MACHINISTS 233 

in general, seeing that all the rest of the world seems to be 
about the same distance up in the air. Must catch a train 
for Sunday up in Lemington and then hope for some inter- 
esting days before the catching of a boat — if possible, one 
that wiU give me a chance to work my passage and so get a 
little closer to that problem of the American merchant ma- 
rine — namely, the American sailor man. 

Later. 

The lad who helped me to the station has, like all the 
others, his eye on the job. 

'^Y' see, I had to leave school and the farm when I was 
thirteen. Then at fourteen I was making shells for the war 
— at four pounds the week — not bad, y' know. Now I'm 
learning all about running a licensed house — ^how to serve 
whiskey and gin and all the various drinks, y' see. After 
that, I can get a job anywhere. One thing's certain, your 
friend Pussyfoot would ^cop it' here in Sheffield! It's a 
fine house where I am now — ^and where you've been. They 
treat even the lowest of the maids as members of the fam- 
ily.'' 



CHAPTER VII 

LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 

Tuesday, Sept. 7th, 
Whitechapel District, 
London, East End. 
Three hundred years ago to-day the Pilgrim fathers 
sailed out of Plymouth harbor for the New World and evi- 
dently this part of the world, at least, thinks they did a 
good job. Too bad that they failed so often to give to the 
Quakers, Baptists, witches, Puritans, and others full por- 
tions of the same freedom they were seeking for themselves. 
Perhaps, however, their shortcoming makes it easier to 
understand how the modern labor problem grows up at the 
hands of the foreman, superintendent, or manager who only . 

a few years ago may have himself hoped for larger free- f 

dom as a worker. It is undoubtedly easier over here than 
in America to understand how inj&nitely numerous and com- | 
plex are the factors in this matter of right relations between 
employee and employer. To an extent unusual with us the 
average employer here is forced by the world-wide char- 
acter of his market to keep his eye — ^and base his policies — 
upon the selling prices, market conditions, money and ex- 
change rates, etc., etc., of countries all around the globe. 
The attitude of the government, not only of Britain but of 
Italy or Spain, Australia or America, can apparently — ^and 
without half -trying — '^ball up'' the whole matter of a 
steady or an unsteady job, a happy or an unhappy worker, 
to say nothing of a happy or unhappy employer. Even the 
interest or apathy of some strange people three thousand 
miles away may complicate the whole situation — ^just as our 
own unwillingness to eat rice and the English unwillingness 

234 



LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 235 

to eat corn tremendously complicated the world's food prob- 
lem in the days of the submarines. 

On the way down here yesterday from Coventry and 
Leamington our compartment brought together several of 
those threads which tie the world together here in the 
manner sure to strike an American. 

^^A fair place for a man or woman is New Zealand/' said 
the sailor boy on leave from his ship — ^Hhat is, if they've 
no kiddies. But there's no chance for 'ome in two years — 
with two rooms a-costin' them two pounds a week. Every 
job 'as a union for it and every man must stick to 'is job — 
and every woman. A cook can only cook and a maid can 
only maid. A bartender daren't move from one bar to an- 
other, even under the 'same roof. There in New South Wales 
the coal miners have been on strike eighteen months with six 
of the mines now flooded — ^ruined, you might say. You see, 
they were promised more money after the war and the gov- 
ernment has delayed. 

^^Servant-girls work only seven and one-half hours and 
get their thirty shillin' a week besides bein' 'found.' But 
o' course there's little manufacturing in Australia and prac- 
tically none in New Zealand. Still, I'm wondering what the 
New Zealand farmers would do if they should hear that the 
10,000 tons of butter for which they get around two bob a 
pound is sold in London for six. Well, anyway, I've got 
my job sure because I've served my apprentice and am an 
able-bodied seaman, and they're gettin' scarce, y' know.'^ 

The young and pretty mother was kept too busy by her 
three children to give him the attention he wanted, and 
when he got out at the station she only nodded with what 
must have been a disappointing smile to his cheerful 
^'Ta-ta !" She took more interest in the young coal miner 
as he waxed enthusiastic over his job as foreman of the 
machine-cutters in a Midland coal-mine — ^his job and his 
last piece of good fortune. 



236 FULL UP AND FED UP 

^' Well, y^see, I just 'ad an accident — a nawsty one, though 
a bit of luck wi' it, too. Y' see, as we was workin' at the face 
a fall came very sudden and I was pinned beneath it. When 
finally they took me out me left foot was fair smashed to 
smithereens, ye might say. But all thot did fer me was to 
give me a new foot, and 'ere ye can see it's a fine one." 

He had us all guessing as, in a jiiBfy, he had his shoe off 
and was demonstrating with great pride the very latest thing 
in artificial feet. 

^^So ye can see 'tis much better than if me real foot 'ad 
a been there. I would 'ave left it there in the mine if I 'adn't 
left it across the Channel on Flanders field, ye might say, 
though we wasn't there just then. Now I get me disabil- 
ity pension from the government and that keeps me in 
ale money — and, in a manner of speakin', fresh feet!" 

From that the talk goes to the wound, the snake-bite the 
quiet young man's cousin got last month in India — ^also the 
cost of clothes and rent out there. The splendid thing is to 
see how sure everybody feels of himself the moment he can 
find a place that allows him to connect up the general 
political or other gossip with some of his own — or at least a 
relative's or close friend's — ^actual experience, particularly 
the experience connected with his job. The surprising thing 
again, a few days later, is to see how little this vivid and 
compelling, "close-up" movie of our own personal, six-days- 
the-week experience there on the job is taken so little note 
of on the seventh day by the teachers of the art of living in 
the churches. 

To be sure, the minister last Sunday in talking to a group 
of boys gathered at a mission called work "God's greatest 
gift to man." The difficulty was that he failed to find any- 
thing to say about it indicating that he thought it really 
attractive in spite of the fact that most of the youngsters 
are probably teasing the life out of their fathers and moth- 
ers to let them quit school and show themselves men by 



LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 237 

getting a job. Still if he had aroused enthusiasm for his 
subject instead of a sense of unpleasant duty, the words of 
the hymn would have made it seem hardly worth while to 
bother about it: 

"A few more days the cross to bear, 
And then with Christ a cross to wear; 
A few more marches weary, 
Then we'll gather 'ome. 

O'er Time's rapid river, 
Soon we'll rest forever; 
No more marchings weary, 
When we gather 'ome." 

Luckily the boys weren't troubled by the words enough to 
prevent their handUng the tune most lustily — so lustily, in 
fact, that when the prayer followed, it was hard to follow: 

^^Oh, Lord — Hi sye now, boys, are we goin' to 'ave a bit 
of silence? Now then — Oh, Lord, we thank thee that — 
Now, 'ere, Hi tell ye I won't be fooled with — ^you boys on 
the back seat there! Now — Well — Oh, Lord " 

Still it is easy to expect great things from a crowd that 
come so close to taking the roof off with their enthusiastic: 
'^ 'Ail 'im ! 'Ail 'im ! 'Ail 'im oo sives you by 'is grice." 

A day or so in Coventry gives a good promise for the way 
into a better industrial situation. This is the Detroit of 
Great Britain. The newness of the motor industry has per- 
mitted the building of splendidly lighted and well-planned 
factories for the building of various well-known motor-cars, 
ordnance, and the making of machine tools. With the large 
adoption of piece-work the earnings are said to average, at 
least in certain of the motor plants, seven pounds ten per 
week. According to one executive the union heads, for the 
most part, are earnest, honest, and fairly easy to get along 
with. There is evidently a good deal of discussion back and 
forth on the engineers' demand of '^one man^ one machine" 



238 FULL UP AND FED UP ' 

together with the accompanying insistence that every ma- 
chine must have a skilled man. 

Most attractive are the workers^ homes and these are, of 
course, immensely helped by the remarkable cleanUness of 
the atmosphere. This, in turn, is due to the very up-to- 
date plan whereby practically all the local factories buy 
their power of the city electric-light plant — ^at an extremely 
low cost. From the huge stacks of this establishment — 
called by leading citizens 'Hhe most efficient electric plant 
in England'' — not a wisp of smoke is to be seen. The 
Labor party's proposal for cheapening production and im- 
proving life throughout the industrial cities of the country 
by locating such plants at mine mouth certainly look good 
after weeks in such places as Swansea, Glasgow, Middles- 
brough, and Sheffield — not to mention Cleveland, Pitts- 
burgh, South Chicago, etc. 

Coventry is said to set the pace for the country on wages, 
though considered more or less of a law unto itself with so 
much emphasis on piece-work, skilled men, and exceptional 
living and working conditions. Certainly there is an ex- 
ceptional looking lot of men in the plants visited. If any 
outstanding unhappiness is peculiar to the place it might 
come from that feeling that the pay for the skilled men is 
unduly low in comparison with the unskilled— especially 
likely where as here a threat is being constantly made upon 
skilled jobs by the rapid advance of the machine tools 
which permits — in fact, favors — the increasing use of non- 
skilled or semi-skilled men. Of course, a careful labor 
diagnosis might discover unreasonable or unfair employers. 
This is greatly to be doubted, considering the up-to-date- 
ness of the plants and the way in which most of the em- 
ployers appear to be alive to the labor problem and at work 
upon it by means of carefully organized labor departments. 
One man connected with one of these does feel that the 
workers are not doing enough to keep the standard of their 



LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 239 

living up to their increased earnings: ^'Men who drank 
penny pre-war beer now try to demonstrate their progress 
by drinking shiUing whiskey — if not thirty-five-shilling 
champagne P' 

Few cities of the country surely could give a more in- 
teresting representation of the newer and more hopeful 
domestication of the modern industrial system by managers 
and men working and living steadily and normally under 
good conditions of air and sunUght and homes and wages 
and the old historic days of the guilds and the Lady Godivas 
— ^also the bell-ringers. In the grand old cathedral the an- 
cient deacons evidently know something about the way men 
like to feel, that what they are doing is contributing some- 
thing worth while to the world's history and happiness. 
Just imagine the satisfaction it must be to the grandchil- 
dren and great-grandchildren who doubtless come occa- 
sionally to look at the tribute paid their progenitors in the 
handsomely painted statement which, with others, adorns 
the vestibule: 

*^To celebrate the glorious victory of Lord Wellington 
over the French at Salamanca, a peal was rung on these 
bells on Monday 17th August, 1812, consisting, of 5,000 
changes of Oxford Treble Bob Royal in three hours and 33 
minutes by the following persons: 

Geo. Hawkes, Treble 
Will- Phillips, 2nd Treble 
etc., etc. 
"N.B. The above peal was composed and called by 
Joseph Keene.^^ 

The ^^ reverse English'^ of such honorable recognition is 
suggested hardly more than fifty yards away by an ancient 
pair of disconcertingly well-worn stocks. They were used, 
in the city's market-place, until 1865 ! 



240 FULL UP AND FED UP 

I wonder if there is any connection between our failure to 
understand how thoroughly everybody wants recognition 
when he rings the bell or fires the seething furnace and the 
general feeling that all the world is walking over a mine. 
In the laying of that mine by the messing up of our relations 
with each other, the war appears to have played a much 
greater part than we at home have realized. I hate to be- 
lieve the stories told about the loafing done by many work- 
ers in those hectic days when ^4f a man carried a haromer he 
was considered to be doing hard work/^ or '^ every man in 
his gang paid him a quid a week simply to wake them up at 
night when the boss came out to have a look'^ or when 
^Hhey played cards or cricket or football right there in the 
mill, with him getting an extra quid for watching out for 
the boss/^ ^'And all because everybody got the idea that 
the government's purse was bottomless— and is — ^and right 
to-day when a man comes from the employment office with 
the crowd to where you made application for a man, every 
blessed one of them shoves out his card to you with his 
'sign there to show you're ^^ suited" ' — ^with your signature 
saying that you don't need him because youVe already 
found a man, he can go back to get his unemployment dole 
— while others refuse the job unless you can promise at least 
a week of it because otherwise the one-day or two-day job 
with you may prevent their getting their unemployment 
dole for the full two weeks." 

Back here in London again in the Whitechapel boarding- 
house it is hard to know where the answer is — especially 
with J. H. Thomas saying that in his opinion the past few 
weeks have been the most momentous in the whole history 
of the British labor movement ! 

Later, 

The fireman of the train that brought us into town ought 
not to be forgot. For himself it's easy enough: '^Most of 
the time sittin' right on this box 'ere, a-coastin' down from 






LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 241 

off the Chiltern 'ills/' But for his engine : ^' W'y, it's a shame 
to treat an engine like this one's bein' treated. 'Ere's to- 
day, for instance. We come from Oxford up to Wolver- 
'ampton and then from Wolver'ampton 'ere to London. 
From 'ere she goes back at two o'clock and then on through 
Banbury to Oxford. But never a w'imper comes from 'er. 
Like a top she runs, y' know. . . • But it's all from the short- 
age on account of the war." 

Thursday, Sept. 9th, 
Whitechapel, London. 

Great good luck has made it possible to see most of the 
country's labor leaders perform all at once — down at the 
great national labor conference at Portsmouth to-day. 
Representatives of over four and a half millions of the 
country's workers are there up to their eyes — their very seri- 
ous eyes — in the effort to plan the moves which should fol- 
low what their chairman, Mr. J. H. Thomas, has called ^Hhe 
most momentous weeks in the history of the British labor 
movement." They make a group of very intelligent-looking 
men — also one which knows how to get business done. 

Mr. Thomas never got ^^ fussed" and never seemed to 
swerve from his desire to keep on the steel rails of reason- 
able and practicable affairs — yet always with an aggressive- 
ness of manner and of voice which meant that if these steel 
rails could not be laid, then possibly other emergency ma- 
terials might be used for the meeting of what he evidently 
considers is a genuine emergency. 

Mr. Clynes, Member of Parhament, in spite of his quiet 
manner, had no diflBculty in getting a splendid hearing at 
the hands of the whole great thousand — a self-possessed 
man, evidently respected thoroughly for his sincerity and 
sense. Mr. Bevans quite disagreed with him as to the par- 
ticular method, but was thoroughly certain that the labor 
movement now requires a sort of general staff of all the 
unions which will not only serve to direct the whole nation 



242 FULL UP AND FED UP 

in the time of a nation-wide strike — in the manner of the 
Council of Action — ^but will also work continuously for the 
avoidance of strikes. A very forceful speaker Mr, Bevans 
certainly is, and much respected for his victory last spring in 
obtaining the two-shillings-an-hour wage for the dockers and 
longshoremen. 

The best attention of all was given to Arthur Henderson. 
In fact, it was a regular ovation for his return from a re- 
tirement caused by illness. He used to be a Methodist 
local preacher and is felt to have stood only for what he 
considers the fairest of Christian dealings throughout his 
thirty-seven years of connection with the labor move- 
ment. He praised the spirit of labor's political "and| in- 
dustrial activities of the past few months directed as^they 
were at securing peace among the nations and made a very 
short but moving appeal for the continuation of the extraor- 
dinary unity which has distinguished all the labor groups 
in their opposition to the possibility of war with Russia. 
If the Labor party comes into power they will certainly 
have in both him and Mr. Thomas men of ideals, square- 
ness, and strength — mental and moral. 

George Lansbury, editor of the Herald^ was on hand, 
and smiling in spite of the general public's — though not 
labor's — acceptance of the government's charges that mem- 
bers of the Herald^s staff have been receiving large sums of 
money and jewels from the Bolshevists — in fact, that Mr. 
Lansbury's own son has been in direct contact with the Bol- 
shevist emissaries for placing the HeraMs columns at their 
disposal. Lansbury represents a very remarkable combina- 
tion of highly religious and Christian beliefs and scruples 
with a highly revolutionary political philosophy. His 
great word is ^4ove" and he appealed to his audience not 
to hate capitalists but to consider them only the sad victims 
of the capitalistic system. He sees the revolutionary move- 
ment as a highly spiritual '^ drive" for bringing into immedi- 
ate or early operation the brotherhood of man. The orgy 



LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 243 

of blood caused by the killing of those whose presence would 
comphcate or endanger the new regime, he appears to re- 
gard as a highly unfortunate but inevitable first step toward 
the reign of good-will which the London Soviet will direct. 
His view-point made it easier for me to see how the ^^ Bol- 
shy '' leader there in the South Wales mine came into his 
own willingness to ^^ devote twelve years of my life for 
the saving of England against the competition of Soviet 
Russia!" 

A rather weak-voiced representative of the co-operative 
movement reported the strong and steady increase of the 
co-operative enterprises and called attention to the way in 
which these are fighting the capitalist regime by constantly 
reducing the amount of money available for investment for 
competitive profit. 

Among the various "fraternal delegates'^ the one from 
Canada appeared surprisingly refined and gentlemanly, but 
was hardly able to make himself heard. He assured the 
convention that the "0. B. U.,'' or One Big Union idea is 
not so important in Canadian labor matters as its repre- 
sentatives claim. He also appealed to his fellow workers to 
discount among the workers in the cities and provinces of 
Great Britain the over-attractive pictures of Canadian life 
painted by Canadian employers' associations. These pre- 
paid the passage of workers, but generally produced, within 
a very few weeks, a greatly disappointed immigrant; 

Unfortunately it must be confessed that the two fraternal 
delegates sent by our own great union movement were far 
below the generality of speakers. They were given the 
scant hearing which both the text and the delivery of their 
greetings deserved. 

Without respect to nationality the crowds at the edges 
of the zone of good hearing complicated the situation for 
the weak-voiced speakers and for the other listeners with 
their scarcely suppressed: 

"We cawn't 'ear/' "W'at 'ave we done to deserve this?" 



244 FULL UP AND FED UP 

^^Good Lord, ^ere we go for another ^arf 'our!" ^^Lead 'im 
out!'' etc., etc. 

^^It is greatly to be regretted that such a huge hall with 
the acoustics none too good requires such huge physical 
effort that it always plays into the hands of the demagogues, 
trained as they are in the art of making their great voices 
carry to the farthest corners/' one of the leaders on the plat- 
form whispered to me. ^^That discourages, you see, the 
serious and thoughtful discussion which is needed at every 
convention and particularly at such a critical time as this." 

The words of one of the best orators on the progranome were 
lost, not because of acoustics, but because as a representa- 
tive of the General Federation of Workers of France he 
spoke in French. It must be said, however, that the crowd 
came in with its applause quite properly at the end of a 
highly moving peroration on behalf of a pretty extreme 
programme whereby all the nations of the world should 
take over immediately the various industries, beginning first 
with coal and transportation. When a very distinguished- 
looking representative of the union of musicians offered the 
translation, several cheerful listeners called to him to '^ Why 
not set it to music?" 

The Dutch secretary of the International Federation of 
Trade Unions made a very masterly speech in English, but 
was not slow to urge the whole group to rise up against the 
capitalistic masters. 

^^ ^Britains never will be'slaves,' so your poet sings, but 
nevertheless that is what they are unless they can take ad- 
vantage of the present unity to put an end — a victorious 
end — to the class struggle ! 

'^Without the British unions and their aggressive and 
united leadership the proletariat movement of the world 
cannot build the world progress and the world peace which 
is envisaged in the eyes of working men throughout the 
world." 



LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 245 

Mixed in the applause that followed were a number of 
cheers of: '^ We are for socialism !^' 

Later this same representative told a small group of us 
about the disunity of the 261,000 Dutch workers, with 
100,000 of them in one general union, 60,000 others in a 
Catholic union, another 60,000 in a body of anti-revolution- 
aries, etc., etc. ^'Seventeen different parties make up our 
country's Congress, including four different kinds and 
varieties of Socialists !'' He is greatly disappointed that 
Mr. Gompers, while opposing political action and organiza- 
tion for the American Federation of Labor, nevertheless is 
perfectly willing to have the various Federation conven- 
tions break in upon European poUtics with this or that 
resolution regarding Ireland and other parts of the world ! 
He told how international relationships between great bodies 
of men can be complicated by extremely small, if not trivial, 
frictions. It seems that in recent international congresses 
much bad temper has been caused because the American 
delegates would not follow the rule that any person wishing 
the floor must send up his name to the chairman and so re- 
ceive his assignment of time and place. As a result the 
American delegates would get up and insist upon speaking, 
caUing out finally in their irritation before the gavel finally 
banged them down: "Mr. Chairman! Mr. Chairman! I 
insist I have the floor. . • . But I see no one else using it ! 
Why do you refuse me my right to speak? I have tried 
now six times,'^ etc., etc. 

Partly as the result of such misunderstandings and 
partly as the result of its conviction that the International 
Federation of Trade Unions is more revolutionary than it 
cares to be, the American Federation of Labor has not sent 
in its recent dues and is, accordingly, Ukely to be barred 
out from the convention next year. Dutch labor, it says, 
is almost entirely Socialist. The country has practically no 
iron and steel industry, though there are 50,000 workers in 



246 FULL UP AND FED UP 

the metal trades; most of the country ^s workers make the 
textiles that go to Java and similar colonies; the diamond 
workers in Amsterdam are still the leaders of the skilled 
workers of the country, though they, too, have fallen some- 
what behind as compared with their pre-war pre-eminence 
over the less skilled and the unskilled workers. 

It was possible to meet a number of what, I presume, 
might be called the intellectuals — ^men who, like Phillip 
Snowden, are in politics as leaders of the Independent Labor 
party, or who are giving their private means and their lives 
and their educated minds to the advancement of the labor 
movement. Because these are often not officials, many of 
them seem to have no representation on the floor, though 
their names are to be seen at the bottom of such important 
matters as reports on the cost of hving or plans for a tax 
upon capital instead of income, etc., etc. A group of these 
expressed to me the belief that American education misses 
a considerably larger proportion of American children than 
we patriotic Americans like to believe. Also that we are 
highly negligent in allowing the situation to continue where- 
by a few captains of industry can become so enormously 
wealthy while so many other thousands and millions con- 
tinue poor. 

There seems to be no group in America quite comparable 
to such a group of '^Assistants to the Labor Movement.'^ 
Even the editors of some of our most labor-favoring papers 
realize that any efforts to help the American laborer to 
fight his battles at such a convention would be met with 
little other than jeers by workers who insist upon their 
ability to look out for themselves. The reason is, perhaps, 
that the workers at home have not yet begun to fight on 
the pohtical as well as on the industrial side. In the nature 
of the case an outsider is hardly in a position to help di- 
rectly toward setthng an industrial dispute unless given an 
unmistakable and urgent invitation. 



LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 247 

One of the men whose face was distinguishable in the 
multitude but who had little to say, though he is a member 
of Parliament and a Privy Counsellor of the realm, is John 
Hodge, leader, with Arthur Pugh, of the highly successful 
Iron and Steel Trades Confederation. He is reported to 
have grown up out of the worst and hardest of steel and 
iron jobs and to have nothing in common with those leaders 
who have been educated at Ruskin College. It is the highly 
intellectual training of these last that is said by some to 
have overimpressed many American investigators with the 
vision and constructive thoughtfulness of the EngUsh labor 
movement. 

On the whole, however, no one can watch for even a 
short time the deliberations of these representatives of 
their working millions without coming to feel that, what- 
ever may be said for the American working man as compared 
with the British, the EngUsh labor leader is without doubt 
to be considered a better-trained and better-educated man 
than the American leader. It is one of these leaders that 
gave me the best simmaing up of the evils of the irregular 
job yet encountered. 

'^Of course, the average employer or citizen is not so far 
off when he says that the average docker or longshoreman 
does not want a steady job. It is true that in many cases 
the men can hardly stand the strain of, say, three weeks of 
steady work. But this is because the man has been phys- 
ically and morally demoralized by years and years of never 
knowing from one day's end to another whether to-morrow's 
sun will find him at work." 

Then he added a phrase which I am inclined to think 
must somehow get itself written upon the heart of every 
citizen in Christendom who would wish genuinely to help 
solve the problem of unhappy workers: 

"Irregular work always makes an irregular worker. And 
an irregular worker is always bound to be an irregular citizen.'' 



248 FULL UP AND FED UP 

That strikes me as one of the most vital and deep-going 
generaUzations yet heard in all my travels and adventures. 
It goes right to the heart of the matter because it goes 
right to the heart of the worker, and the heart of the worker 
is — because it must be in an industrial era — the heart of 
the man and the citizen. 

It's safe to say that a very large proportion of the trans- 
actions of such a conference as to-day's, and an even larger 
percentage of all the words spoken there in more or less 
bitterness of feeling, would have been made unnecessary 
if the world could somehow have contrived for, say, the 
last twenty years, to have worked on that nineteen-word 
proposition of his. I grow daily more certain that there 
are millions of workers in the world whose real need is a 
steady job. By long experience most of these have learaed 
that the only appeal which gets the ear either of the em- 
ployer or of the public is the appeal which has that appeal 
for steady work camouflaged, either as an appeal for more 
wages or for fewer hours, in order that whatever work there 
is may be spread about as evenly as possible for the benefit 
of the greatest number of work-needing workers. 

When I think of that and of the number of men here who 
are looking for jobs — ^and according to the papers it is in- 
creasing daily — I almost hesitate to go down-town to-morrow 
to see about working my passage home. Pretty certainly, 
the number of others desiring the same opportunity will 
be large — disquietingly large. 

Later. 

The day should not close without mention of Portsmouth's 
glory, the old wooden flagship. Victory^ where the visitor 
can see the spot marked, ''Here Nelson fell at Trafalgar," 
or look upon the tables there, on one of the lower after- 
decks, where the wounded were operated on with only 
the light of candles. On those scarred but solid decks, 
too, you can learn again the old truth that desire is at the 



LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 249 

bottom of our doings, as when Nelson, given orders to re- 
tire from the battle of Copenhagen, put the telescope to 
his eye and reported, '^I can see no signal!'' and kept on 
until the fight was won. He had been looking with his 
blind eye ! 

''I'd like to see America and Britain stand together with 
never more a word of jangle between us,'' said the Old 
Salt who rowed us out, and who boasted of knowing ''every 
bloo-ody seagull in the 'arbor 'ere by nime." '^ Your Presi- 
dent there with you, wuU, 'e earns 'is wiges, 'e do. But 
oors, wuU, 'e's the biggest pauper we got, ye might sye. 
'E costs us four million poon' a year, 'e do, and 'e eyen't 
worth it. Maybe some dye we'll 'ave a President 'ere.'' 

Whitechapel, London, 
Friday, Sept. 10. 

Talk about living a dayful of the double life ! 

This morning passed dismally enough for the motley, 
unshaved crowd of us sitting, hour after hour, in the sea- 
men's room in the basement of the American Consulate, 
ready to spring to our feet the moment any respectable- 
looking stranger, even faintly resembling a ship's skipper, 
might enter the room. Many of the men have been here 
weeks and weeks, spending every day in these same end- 
less hours of waiting, some of them being boarded at near-by 
places by the Consulate, according to our seamen's law, 
until a return ship happens along to offer a job home. A 
package of cigarettes helped wondrously for making almost 
100 per cent of acquaintance — in fact, so much prosperity 
seemed to give to one or two of the worst off a hope that 
I might contribute a shilling or sixpence to their absolutely 
exhausted finances. Fortunately, the cleanliness of their 
morning shave contrasted so strongly with my own condi- 
tion that a proper alibi was easy for me. Certainly few 
places could stage discussions of a more world-wide character. 



250 FULL UP AND FED UP 

Outside of the usual discussion of jobs, nothing appeared 
to have quite so universal an interest as the discussion of 
the world^s seaports and their opportunities for vice. Cer- 
tainly, too, every one tried his best to sidestep the low 
rating given by the crowd to the man with the fewest ad- 
ventures along this line. Nor did such conversation elicit 
any remonstrance from the clerk as being contrary to the 
numerous signs insisting upon ^^No violent language or 
boisterous conduct permitted in the room.'^ At least it 
was something of a satisfaction to hear again men saying, 
^^Well, I'll tell the world!'' ''I sure do,^^ or '^Some party, 
believe me!" 

Later on, down on the docks, a stevedore treated me as 
a friend as he brought out a lot of onions from his capa- 
cious pockets to add to the bread and cheese and beer and 
salt that made our humble — also highly dirty and sloppy — 
repast. His ^^Hi got 'em off the bloo-ody lighter we're 
unloadin' 'ere!" recalled my earlier friend and his need of 
telling the difference between the pineapples and the 
plums in the absence of ^Hhe bleedin^ labels eaten off by 
the bloo-ody rats." 

As we left the place together a young lady with exceed- 
ingly high heels came mincing by- His words followed 
with amazing quickness upon the report of his eyes: ^^Hi 
pities the bloody bloke that marries 'er, Hi do! All she 
wants is ter read a bleedin' novel all the bhnkin' dye!" 

After that — also after a bath and a shave — the use of 
the telephone made possible a call upon one of the coun- 
try's leading scholars, thinkers, and writers: 

^^ America, it seems to me, is remarkable for attaining a 
quick pre-eminence in this or that subject, but in a rather 
spotty way. Since my first visit over there, twenty years 
ago, you have made amazing progress. Indeed you have 
achieved almost pre-eminence in architecture, painting, and 
in certain fields of sciencet But, oddly enough, you have 



LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 251 

not yet furnished for these present times great philosophers 
or poets. 

''I was struck, also, by finding that many of your high 
school boys, as, indeed, some of your college seniors, have 
still no idea of what they are going to do — ^what field they 
will enter. Before I was seven I began to absorb the idea 
that I was to go in for the intellectual life. My brother was 
apparently judged a little less quick with his mind, so he 
was at a similarly early age practically brought up for the 
life of business. Our young men at nineteen are probably 
two years older than yours. On the other hand, you have 
four times as many students in your secondary schools, 
and eight times as many in your colleges and universities 
as we, although your population is only twice ours. 

^'As you know, our civil service permits intellectual 
workers to earn a living. That and our 'Old Gold' — the 
one hundred or several hundred pounds of yearly income 
inherited from some old inheritance which may have been 
in the family for generations. This permits a man to take 
a place in a government office or a part-time university 
appointment at a salary below what he might need, and 
still devote considerable time to the following of his real 
desires along his own particular Une. The trouble just now, 
however, is that we have what we are calling Hhe new 
poor' — ^people whose bonds, though safe, have lessened in 
real value through the lessened value of the pound. The 
^new rich' have, by the same token, come in with the 
high dividends permitted by the war. Thus, those who 
went in for security are finding themselves poor, while 
those who took risks are rich. . . . What all of us could 
wish here is that society will either change into a definite 
system in which service shall be the aim rather than profit, 
or that more and more business men may go in, as they 
seem to me to be going in there in America, for combining 
service with business, and with moderate profit." 



262 FULL UP AND FED UP 

Still later in the day the leader of one of the most con- 
servative organized groups of employers in the country 
made the astonishing statement that, so far from wishing 
that the unions might be done away with, as an American 
official in a corresponding office would probably have 
wished: 

^'We want more power — not less — for the union heads. 
Then we can work out together the best possible agreements 
for the various industries and be sure that those agreements 
will be kept, without so much troublesome pressure from 
the union members, who have not had the opportunity to 
think the whole thing through. It is unthinkable that 
Britain should ever go back to an industry in which the 
individual employer competes with other employers of the 
country, each fighting out with his own workers the ques- 
tion of wages, hours, conditions, etc. Stronger unions rather 
than fewer unions is what British industry needs.^' 

Unfortunately another group of officials of an employers' 
group, dealing with the representatives of one group of 
unions, reported continued difficulty with members of the 
building-trades unions. In one case this had resulted in 
their getting important pieces of work done by union offi- 
cials themselves, who worked after hours secretly and at 
rates considerably below the union terms. It was one of 
these officials — of the Employers' Association — who ex- 
pressed the feeling so generally encountered here, namely the 
feeling of the advantage of security given the government's 
civil-service jobs as compared with the ordinary business 
job: 

'^Of course it was a quite serious decision, you know. 
But in spite of the security of the government service, and 
in spite, too, of the rather unusual social recognitions which 
come to the men of the state or diplomatic department as 
compared with a business man, earning perhaps three times 
as much, still I left it after a number of years and took a 



LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 253 

chance. You see, that meant giving up my pension and 
all the career my place offered. With my education, you 
see, also, I was able to take the senior exam instead of the 
junior exam, which is open only to men who have had 
comparatively little schooling but have worked up from the 
bottom.'' 

To-day's telephonmg brought forth a great flood of mur- 
derous designs upon the equipment, and also some answers 
from other sufferers as to the why of such awful equipment 
and arrangements. But it is too late to go into that now, 
especially in view of the need of being on hand early to 
begin the morning's discussion at the seamen's room of 
the comparative facihties of Buenos Aires, Singapore, and 
Hamburg for duUing the edge of a sailor's lonesomeness. 

Sunday night, Sept. 12, 
Whitechapel, London. 

A short ride farther east into Canning Town gave an 
interesting morning with London's unionized lightermen, 
also with their oflBcials, including, best of all, Mr. Harry 
Gosling, one of their thoughtful and powerful representatives 
in the Triple Alliance. Mr. Gosling has evidently been 
one of the workers, for his manner is very much that of his 
members, most of whom appeared quite steady citizens in 
their Sunday clothes. His seriousness of manner made any 
large voice or strenuousness of action unnecessary. 

Ahnost every word spoken by him or his associates dis- 
closed again how thoroughly the inamediate conditions of 
the job constitute the chief compulsion which must be at- 
tended to by the workers. 

^^This unemployment question, friends, is with us a 
question not so much of the existence of jobs. It is more 
a question of the distribution of the jobs that exist. To-day 
men are coming to the union offices by scores and scores in 
search of work — men who 'ave 'ad no place for ten, sixteen, 



254 FULL UP AND FED UP 

and twenty weeks. At the same time others — and som€( of 
you chaps 'ere to-day — are working overtime. Gentlemen, 
let the man in you tell you that's not right. If everybody, 
after 'is six turns, we'll say three days and three nights, 
would stop and give these others a chawnce, then all would 
be right. Of course, I know that the reason you don't do 
it is because you're not keen to cut out the five shillings for 
the overtime for yourselves nor to save that penalty to the 
employers. I know, too, that if I was to ask you, all of 
you who 'ave 'ad more than six turns the week could give 
willingly to buy food and shoes for the poor chaps with no 
place. But still you're not willing to let them 'ave your 
turn in the line. But, men, I tell you, a job is food — it's 
bread and shoes, it's respectability, everything, all the good 
things you know." 

His every word spoke to me of a sincerity which no one 
could be dull enough to doubt, yet one or two there were 
who rose to ask: ^^Is it true that the honorable secretary 
signs agreements with our employers in secret?" 

About another less important leader a near-by member 
muttered under his breath: ^^Thot mon 'e tikes all the work 
'e can get all around the clock — every stitchin' hour." 

^^'Ow about these 'ere boys wot comes in and tikes a 
mon's job? 'Ow about it, Mr. Secretary? I guess thot's 
right, not 'arf !" called another. 

Apparently that sixteen ^^bob" a day, with special over- 
time pay, attracts men down to the docks in very serious 
numbers the first moment jobs grow scarce in any part of 
the industrial world. . Even though only badgemen are sup- 
posed to be taken on by the foremen, some of these, even 
though members of unions, are apparently careless. Mean- 
while the nature of the job seems, as always, to have suf- 
fered change along with the growth of the lighters or barges 
and the whole industry: 

^^Time was, as the older of you well do know, w'en a 



LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 255 

barge that 'eld fifty tons was big, W'y I've seen the 'ole 
firm get out to make a fuss over a 'undred tonner! And 
now they're three 'undred tons and more— and nobody 
troubles except the small crew tryin' to 'andle 'em. In 
those days, too, our employers knew us all, and we them. 
Now it's a company, and that company is, perhaps, the 
Great Western Railway. And the Great Western Railway, 
they say, is the P and Steamship Line. And that's capi- 
talism, and capitalism 'as its roots and its stations all over 
the world. And further, men, while they work together 
we working men work by ourselves, everybody tryin' to get 
all the work 'e can. We're all too individualistic. That's 
the weakness of us workers. 

^^Now it is those combined employers that threaten our 
comrades, the miners. They want to first break them down 
to lower levels of livin'. Then 'twill be our turn. ... Of 
course, the miners are producin' less. But that's because 
the owners are workin' the worst possible seams as long as 
the government 'as control. To 'elp them we must stand 
together — just as you saw by the papers we did in all the 
meetin's there at Portsmouth last week. Not a word of 
dissent was there in the papers. Now that the government's 
buyin' up all the papers, we can get practically no space 
for explainin' labor's side of the miner's controversy." 

Altogether such words spell a serious situation just ahead. 
Yet I came away from my new friends feeling sure they 
could be trusted to show much reasonableness, even in the 
most trying of eventuahties. 

At noon my table companion at a greasy East End 
eating-place showed a much higher head of steam — ^with 
less assurance of similar reasonableness in case of increased 
pressure: 

"^Fit for ^eroes to live in' — thot's wot they told us afore 
we was let out from the bloo-ody war ! Awnd 'ere's me out 
o' work fer months and months. Not a plice in the 'ole 



256 FULL UP AND FED UP 

bleedin' country f er onto ten months ! — ^me thot alius had 
a good berth and money in me pocket, pre-war. Awnd 
would be still lookin^ but fer a friend, a personal friend, y' 
understawnd? thot gives me a bit o^ work now and then — 
with me arm that ^as two elbows — 'ere! see w'ere 'twas 
broke by the governor on the tank's engine awnd 'ad ter 
be set three times. 

^^I tell ye, it's the government thot's at the bottom of it 
all — the government with the police, the police thot's alius 
tryin' to do yer dirt. Fair villains they are, Ga blime! 
It's like this: 'ere ye are awnd ye've met up with a few 
friends, y' see? Awnd ye 'ave a drink with Jack awnd 
then ye 'ave a drink with Joe, awnd then with yerself, o' 
course. Yer feelin' fit again and 'appy — more like a bloody 
'ero than ye've felt before fer weeks, y' understawnd? — 
with yer 'avin' no plice awnd all. Not drunk, mind ye? 
It tikes, I'll sye, seven bob to get me drunk. Because, as I 
sees it, a mon's not drunk joost becus 'e staggers a bit — not 
till 'e's 'elpless — fair 'elpless and 'opeless, like, y' under- 
stawnd? Then I'll sye 'e's drunk. Some folks cawn get 
drunk on a few 'arf-pints awnd some thinks they's drunk 
when they eyen't. Well, yer steps out onto the street and 
'ere's a bobby, and 'e syes to yer: ^Pass along, there. Jack ! 
Pass along!' Well, ye pass along, but not so fast as the 
government would like, so 'e steps on yer 'eel. Then yer 
syes somethin' about it to yer government — thot's the 
poUceman, y' understawnd? ^'Ere!' yer syes, ^'Ere! wot 
yer doin', eh?' — awnd 'e locks yer oop. Awnd there yer 
gets three months ^'ard.' I've seen it dozens and dozens 
o' times! ^Fit fer 'eroes to live in!' Not 'arf !" 

His constant reference to pints of beer rather than drinks 
of whiskey is in line with most of my observations to date, 
namely that any regime of ^'beer and light wines" would 
stop far short of solving the drink problem here, whatever 
it might do in America. As a matter of fact, a newly 



LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 257 

issued government report states that of 1,505 persons 
charged with drunkenness, 45 per cent were due to beer 
alone, to ^^ spirits'^ alone 42 per cent, and to both together 
13 per cent. 

As we came out into the street crowd — it included some 
mildly intoxicated young boys and girls repeating certain 
obscene words in lieu of conversation — one of the most 
disreputable of ^^ masculine hags'^ yet seen was being told 
by a passer-by: 

'^ Dirty Dick's yer name — or bloo-ody well should be" — 
only to receive his reply: 

'^Well, I'm not dirty-minded like yerself, anyway, you 

— —,'' for two moments of perfectly unprintable 

epithet. 

This evening the candles inside the starched lace cur- 
tains of most of the district's front windows disclosed the 
celebration of the Jewish New Year's eve. On all sides 
men with great beards and long, black, alpaca coats betook 
themselves in reverend and solemn manner to the syna- 
gogue, while others filled the saloons, among them a large 
matronly lady, who could be seen from the street to stand 
treat to a sizable group, of which a new daughter-in-law 
was evidently the centre. Three or four well-dressed and 
modest young Jewish girls of fourteen or fifteen, when 
poUtely approached, were willing to give their interpreta- 
tions of their surroundings: 

'^Not one in a hundred of the Jewish people here drink 
— like the Enghsh do. It's terrible!" one of them, with 
the face and eyes of a poetess, explained as a woman came 
along, nursing a hungry baby, and sat down wearily on the 
steps of the pub, jiggling a second baby nervously as she 
watched the door. ''But I think it's quite plain why the 
Jews live such fine fives. You see it's because every good 
Jew prays to Jehovah. Every day and every morning 
every good Jew prays, and, you see, that gives him cour- 



258 FULL UP AND FED UP 

age. Without courage it is hard to live well, don't you 
think?'' 

A few minutes later, and much to my amazement, they 
all advised me as one interested in seeing how London's / 
unfortunates live: 

^^Why don't you visit a London slum?" 

Still, hardly more than a turn around the comer from 
them, an hour or so later, brought me upon three of the 
most dishevelled, degraded, and depressing wrecks of 
womanhood that one could wish never to behold. Crum- 
pled up, they were upon the low stonework of a church's 
iron fence — ^with heads sunk upon their chests and eyes 
shut hard, as though in the effort to shut off thought of 
their crumpled lives. Here, too, as in Glasgow, amazement 
and loathing stepped hard upon the hopeful heels of pity 
when, before I was past, one of them announced herself a 
member of the most ancient of trades: 

'Tor all their fine clothes the tarts ye'U find in Picadilly 
are no better!" With a jerk she opened the most dis- 
reputable of greasy great-coats upon the filthiest of corsets ! 

Then the compulsion of somebody else's job came along 
to rob her and her companions of the fence's scanty com- 
forts. 

'^ Ye see, I've got to keep 'em movin' off the main streets," 
explained the policeman. ''If I didn't somebody might 
come along and find 'em sleepin' there, or mebbe find 'em 
dead — ^mebbe dead for hours, as they 'ave been found be- 
fore this. Then it would be me before the captain with 'im 
sayin': 'Oho, so you wasn't passin' thot way? Off yer 
beat, was ye? Well, thot'U be so many days off fer ye!' 
So there ye are! In a cellar-way, mebbe, they'll not be 
so easy seen. 

'^But at that the place 'as much improved in twenty 
year. 'Twas right over there — where ye're lookin' now — 
that Jack the Ripper did some of his jobs. Good night to ye." 



II 



LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 259 

It is amazingly easy here, I must say, for all to see such 
awful living and moving pictures of the dreadful depths to 
which men and women can sink when they lose their hold 
on the job. Perhaps that is one cause of the serious words 
of those lightermen and stevedores this morning. They 
trace the honor of their profession back to the days when — 
in the absence of the modem cranes — the disposers or 
placers of the cargo had to be skilled artisans, and they 
still take great responsibility for their huge barges. So it 
is not strange, I suppose, that they feel that the status to 
which they have now attained must be guarded by eternal 
vigilance, aided — ^unfortunately — by that alert distrust and 
suspicion which comes from fear in the effort at self- 
preservation. 

At any rate it makes a fellow's heart heavy, even though 
that heart still insists that at all these levels, high or low 
and in between, men and women seem about equally hard 
on the job of trying to persuade themselves that, somehow 
or other, life is worth living, and that the next turn of the 
wheel will bring a better day. 

Monday, Sept. 13th. 

A package of American cigarettes did wonders this 
morning as a maker of friends in the seamen's room. 

^'Yes, I'm English born, and I've been workin' at en- 
gineerin'. But 'ere you've got to have a pedigree before 
you can get a job. So I'm tryin' to get back for a go at 
salesmanship in the States again. 'Avin' only my first 
papers, God knows when I'll get a ship. Last week, 'ere, 
the clerk 'anded me a pen to sign on. Just then along comes 
a chap that wants the place, and because 'e's a full Ameri- 
can and I've only first papers, 'e gets it. That's fair, I 
suppose, but tough. And now I'd 'ave trouble to get onto 
a ^lime-juice' boat (British) because of those same first 
papers. What I can do I don't know. I've only three 
pounds left!" 



260 FULL UP AND FED UP 

*^ While we were waiting for our boat out there on the 
Baltic/' said a bright-faced young sailor of Australian birth, 
^Hhe Bolshevists came along and made us go to prison.'' 
With that, of course, we all gathered 'round. His voice 
and manner were enough to convince all of us at least 
of the truth of his tale. 

'^Days and days we were cooped up in a house — ^nobody 
knew what for. One night the soldiers came into the room 
and knocked two old women in the heads with their mus- 
kets. So we all went out with the soldiers — excepting some 
of the best-looking young women. They cried out to me 
to help them, and if it would have done any good I'd have 
laid down my life, I swear to God. But what could I do 
with a penknife in my pocket? For weeks we all had to 
stay with hundreds of others in a wire barricade in one of 
the Russian towns out in the country. . . . Soldiers? I 
should say not ! Why, they tore the clothes off the women 
and made pants by wrappin' them around their own legs ! 
Anything to keep warm ! I gave my coat to a young woman, 
and if she didn't fall right down and kiss my feet ! I took 
off some of my underclothes for a baby, and I swear to God 
the mother worshipped me for days ! Women — taken away 
from their famiUes and husbands — ^were all the time having 
babies there right out in the open air ! Of course they all 
died, and we buried them. If only some of the Bolshie 
agitators here could see what I seen ! 

'^Get out? Well, we couldn't stay there and die, could 
we? A big Swede — more than six feet tall he was — and 
strong! — well, I'll say he broke twenty big stones drivin'^a 
railway spike with 'em through a short heavy piece of wood. 
And all the time he was chucklin' or swearin' under his 
breath — you know what I mean, schemin' his plan. There 
was a guard on each side of the square — ^just like this, see? 
Well, here was the guard just outside. My Swede friend, 
he goes up and talks to him a bit — ^with his spiked stick 



LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 261 

under his coat. Pretty soon he calls out to one of the 
brightest of the girls — a Finnish girl, she was. And when 
the guard comes up close to the fence to talk to her, par- 
ticular like, y' understand? — the Swede he pushes his arm 
out quick through the barbed wire. It cut him somethin^ 
terrible. It was all sore for days. But he grabs Mr. Guard 
around the neck and pulls him over to him with his arm — 
like this, see? — and then all at once he drives this spike — on 
that short, heavy stick, y' understand? — right into his 
head. I'll bet you it went in this far — ^a full two inches. 
Say, I'll never forget the sound of it crunchin' through the 
poor devil's skull and into his brains if I Uve to be ninety ! 
Well, we all walked out — the five of us in the scheme — ^and 
maybe we wasn't happy when we walked to Helsingfors!'' 

It made a big impression, but everybody had his mind 
too much on his own troubles to forget them long. 

'^On the beach at B. A. (Buenos Aires) I vas,'^ said a 
fellow citizen bom in Germany. ^^Only two-t'ree boats a 
mont' from dere, dey vas. Awful. I dink I starve dere. 
New York I vant now." 

^^Well," testified another, ^'I was in the hospital here 
longer'n that, and they don't give a man no food worth 
mentionin'. Yes, I had the old stuff bad, all right — and so 
did the whole ship's crew of us — every blinkin' one. But 
they was poor devils there that will never get out except 
they're carried out, y' understand ? And those that do get 
out — if they does — they'd shoot themselves if they had any 
sense. Awful they was ! Awful ! 

^' Yes, I've seen vice in every country, from the Esquimaux 
to the New Zealand and Australian natives. But it takes 
a woman of Denmark to find a sailor that's lost his money 
and sleepin' on a park bench, maybe, without nothin' in 
the world, and take him to her room and give him food 
and a night's lodging, and wash his clothes for him and 
have 'em all dry w'en he gets up in the morning and no 



262 FULL UP AND FED UP 

charge, mind ye. I calls that Christianity even if she 
wasn't wot you'd call a moral woman. . . . I'm forty-two 
years old now. It's only two years since I began to dissi- 
pate, but, believe me, I've kept it goin' ever since." 

If possible at all, I'll hope to see if he has as definite a 
reason for his turning to the left at forty as my old friend, 
the repairer in the South Wales mine, had for his turning to 
the right at the same mile-post. 

The conversation of these men is certainly wonderful for 
wearing seven-league boots. In every three sentences they 
travel down to the depths of moral degradation, or up to 
the heights of strong men's rugged hopes and back — ^beside 
going four times 'round the world. As to that, I did pretty 
well myself. For the next half-hour sent me miles and 
miles in terms of psychological distance: after a quick 
change in a public wash-room, I sat down to lunch with 
an American captain of conamerce whose success is world- 
known. 

"Somehow or other," he said, "fear must be put out of 
men's minds as the chief motive to get them to work. If 
we could do that then the whole problem of industrial rela- 
tions would be infinitely simplified. But employers have 
little right to try to lessen the power of the unions until they 
themselves can agree to lessen the worker's fear and the need 
of the protection which the unions afford. So the obstacle 
is in the short-sighted employers as much as in the short- 
sighted workers and leaders of workers." 

Still later a labor leader of international fame showed that 
he had been doing some thinking about the newest phases 
of this problem of jobs as between the various peoples: 

"I am for common sense — not Bolshevism. I want to 
see the country grow up — not blow up. Some of my Italian 
Socialist friends say to me: 'England should give us its coal 
— ^and no charge. You British have no right to possess 
such things in such unfair quantities. No nation has. 



1 



LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 263 

That makes the enmity and war in the world. They should 
all be pooled.' I tell them: 'Will you pray to God to move 
our coal mountains to Italy, or will you have me persuade 
my Welsh friends to get it out for you for nothing?"' 

Then he gave in a manner helpful to long remembrance, 
a statement of this whole huge complex human problem, 
which has been caused, after all, more or less by the fixed- 
ness of nature's disposition of coal and ore, wheat land and 
forest or desert, rivers, harbors, or precipices: 

''We can only raise enough food here to support about 
seven of our nearly fifty million people. In order to get 
the food for the other forty, or forty-three, we must give — 
we must export— the things other people need from us. 
That's mostly coal. If we can't export coal, then in order 
to get both jobs and food for those other milUons, we must 
export our last resource — and our first liability — our human 
flesh!" 

As we discussed how rapidly labor is becoming an inter- 
national problem just because the human flesh of the 
laborers can, if necessary, be so easily transferred from one 
country to another — ^more easily than the mountains and 
coal-mines — a secretary came to his elbow with her: "Please 
sign this letter for the Continent, sir, for the evening 
Aero Post!'' 

Verily these be thrilling times ! 

Wednesday, September 15. 

The threatened coal strike is very unpopular in the 
basement of the American Consulate. The shortage of 
stocks is causing many American boats either to delay their 
sailing or to go to the Continent to fill their bunkers. So 
for all of us the chances look poor for getting home via the 
forecastle route. Daily the crowd in the chairs and on 
the window ledges, tables, and boxes grows more discon- 



264 FULL UP AND FED UP 

solate — ^and more and more anxious to talk of other times 
and climes: 

^'Nobody can't make no fun in Hamburg — even with 
f eef ty marks to the dollar and good champagne for doUar- 
feefty. We bring last month frozen meat cargo from South 
America. Fellow can't talk — ^must alia time joost stand 
at bar for get droonk; then go home to bed. No fun" — 
according to a naturalized sailor of Belgian birth. 

"A cargo of champagne — that's wot we had," in the words 
of another. '^And at San Francisco we was sixty-eight 
cases short — ^with bottles all over the boiler-room that took 
us hours throwin' 'em out onto the grates." 

"There in the Bering Sea we done salmon-fishin'. With 
a little yeast and some squeezed fruit and a secret still we 
had in the fo'c'stle, everybody wondered how was we 
gettin' so fearful stewed. Finally we had to take and 
distil beans. Say, when you took a sip o' that stuff, you 
knew you had a drink ! 

"Why should a man bother with passports and such rot 
— SL man who's been goin' thirty years without 'em?" His 
red face, gray hair and oilskin coat certainly looked the 
part. "I tell you I been out there twenty years in the 
Northwest fishin' and sealin' in steamers and wind-jammers 
full of lumber, and here two years on a tug and all. Second 
mate's ratin' I got, I tell you. And now they want a pass- 
port!" 

"Why can't a man go anywhere's he likes?" said a tall, 
lean, husky fellow with an evil eye. "I tell you the world 
was made for folks, and not for governments. It's all the 
same everywhere. We've got to work too bhnkin' hard. 
Why don't we learn from the Hindus? Out there it takes 
ten men to do one man's work. Then everybody would 
beg us to take a job everywhere. Out in Australia there's 
a police-station every few miles. You've got to keep 
movin', but you do get the eats until you get a job." 



LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 265 

''Well/' said another, '4n Denmark there's only a few 
million workers, but, believe me, they keep everybody else 
out — and all to protect their jobs.'' 

To-day when a fine-looking ship's captain appeared, the 
talk stopped instantly, and in a moment everybody was on 
his feet crowding around him. When he finally took on a 
cook, the rest of us stood up, drinking in every word and 
trying, as it were, to absorb the virtue of the ceremony 
vicariously, like a lot of bridesmaids at a wedding. Every 
one of us figuratively licked our chops at the bare sight of 
a man getting a job. When the lucky dog was finally 
signed on, the skipper gave him a few shiUings for paying 
his debts and reporting on board. The fellow's last words 
as he passed out from us proudly with our congratulations 
gave us all a little hope: 

''Well, for a pound here a fellow can get pickled to the 
eyebrows. I wonder what I can do with this." 

So maybe the captain will be back for another cook to- 
morrow. 

After going about the district for a long time in search of 
a restaurant which matched the level of my obvious dis- 
respectability, a fairly decent one had finally to be entered. 
At sight of myself in the glass, wearing an amazingly mean 
set of jaw and eye in the midst of better-dressed people, it 
was easy to recall the words of a boy the other day: 

"Of course I gotta stop at New York City to get some 
clothes before I want my folks to see me." 

Also easy to understand how meanness of visage goes so 
generally with meanness of vestments. It is undoubtedly 
a means of what might be called "spiritual self-protection." 
It is a man's way of saying: "Of course all you guys in your 
good clothes think you're a lot better than me. But I 
tell you, it ain't so. You may fool yourselves and others, 
but you can't fool me." That declaration requires effort, 
and the effort shows in the lines which make that expres- 



266 FULL UP AND FED UP 

sion. I wonder if this same running up the flag of inde- 
pendent and aggressive self-belief under trying circumstances 
does not explain much the same look upon the face of a 
young woman who is perfectly well-dressed but whose 
conscience brings those same gnawings of doubt which are 
caused by such clothes as mine. 

The same general motive, also, I am sure, is behind the 
generous tip by means of which I unconsciously tried to 
impress the young lady with my innate rightness in spite 
of all appearances. It is also pretty surely the reason why 
the poor so generally think it necessary to go the full limit 
in the matter of, say, a funeral. Just as I felt this noon, 
they feel, doubtless, that they start far behind the line and 
that, therefore, they must make a real splurge which leaves 
no doubt of the full rightness of their intentions. 

At all these restaurants, good and bad, all classes of men 
seem to spend a lot of time talking about their various 
wagers on this horse or that. A daily paper, by the way, 
gives the opinion of a judge that: 

'^ Betting is particularly rife in congested industrial com- 
munities such as . The streets are infested by betting 

touts and agents abound in the workshops. Daily, thou- 
sands of bets are made, and thousands of pounds wagered. 
No class or section of the community is free from indul- 
gence in it. . . . The presence of bookmakers' agents in 
the workshops is a matter which has long been the subject 
of bitter complaint by the leading employers of the town. 
Not only is time wasted by the men in discussing betting 
chances among themselves, and in making bets with these 
agents, but the whole system is productive of slackness: 
frequently the foremen are inclined to wink at what is 
going on, as they themselves are doing a bit of wagering. 
Betting on football results is carried on on a large scale, 
and although the law has now made coupons illegal, that 
form of speculation is now going on in a different form. 



^i 



LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 267 

The printed coupon cannot be distributed but a 'coupon^ 
can be written out and sent to the proper quarter/^ 

Around the noon-hour, too, the competition for the very 
scarce public 'phones is largely caused by the placing of 
wagers. 

Which reminds me of recent listenings as to the trouble 
there. It appears that the government has lost on the last 
fiscal year, almost exactly the four million pounds which 
the 'phones were making for their private owners when 
taken over a few years ago. General testimony is that 
little, if any, new equipment has been put in, and one inform- 
ant says that the government's first step was to dismiss al- 
most all the technical experts drawing more than 800 pounds 
a year. Every village and city postmaster is, accordingly, 
the man of last authority over an enterprise which requires 
a huge amount of scientific knowledge and oversight for 
its efficient maintenance and development. 

This is in fine with what appears a quite general lack 
here of respect for the technician and scientist. As a tele- 
phone exchange grows in size, the cost of handling each in- 
dividual call increases instead of decreases. This, accord- 
ingly, requires a constantly increasing charge on patrons 
unless it can be offset by increasingly scientific short cuts 
and arrangements. These are hardly favored by the post- 
master's training, by the certainty of the postmaster's life 
job as a civil servant, or by the general absence of the 
usual motive of financial profit. Whatever the cause, 
business men here certainly lack one of the facilities enjoyed 
by their American competitors. I understand that there 
are two 'phones per one hundred of population here as 
against twelve in the States. The strange thing is that 
while the business man here apparently accepts such handi- 
caps so calmly, he is quick to see the thrust of competition 
when a big order of coal or machinery fails to be captured 
by British mills — ^as in the case of a big electric plant re- 



268 ^ FULL UP AND FED UP 

cently ordered from Berlin by one of the large cities of 
Wales. 

Called this afternoon on Robert Williams of the National 
Transport Union. Unlike the docker's union official of 
last week at Portsmouth, he is unwilling to admit that the 
irregularity or other conditions of the docker's job have any 
particular influence on their view-points: ^^When tempta- 
tion and opportunity jibe, then a man falls — that's all there 
is to it." 

He completely sidesteps all thought that the leaders 
should work to regularize the living of their members by 
working to regularize their jobs: ^^You see, they all like to 
work when they like to — ^and there you are!" 

After we had got into a dispute about Marxianism and I 
had backed out in order to avoid unpleasant complications, 
he gave a very good statement of the union official's respon- 
sibility as a spear-head rather than a projector: 

^'We leaders are but the puppets of the pressure from 
beneath. That pressure depends upon our members' mood. 
That mood — that temper — in turn, changes from month 
to month, and season to season, according to the pressure 
of circumstances upon them at the time — like the high cost 
of living, possible war with Russia, etc., etc." 

It was well this came as soon as it did, else I should have 
lost it; for when, a moment later, I asked whether he did 
not think that this pressure might be disastrous unless the 
leaders thought more about the worker's education, he 
gave me an unpleasant look, said something very pointed 
about the ''wrong pew," and got up — ^and I shrugged my 
shoulders and walked out. 

He is one of the recent labor visitors to Russia who came 
back completely convinced of the success of Bolshevism. 
Some of his friends say that while he is very revolutionary 
in his spoken views, he is quite cool and conservative when 



LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 269 

it comes actually to taking the radical step. It is easy to 
see that if he wishes to continue as a radical leader, he must 
have the backing of a radical membership. In that case 
the last thing he ought to do would be to work toward regu- 
larizing that membership's jobs. For that would hardly 
fail to make his members less radical — ^and then they'd 
^'give him the sack.'' 

'' Governesses' Benevolent Institution" was the name of 
an unusual association, or union, noted shortly after. Near 
it was a sign of the ^' Adult and Juvenile Funeral Society" 
— doubtless for making sure that a person's last public 
appearance is accomplished with due respect and ceremony. 

^^I have lost five months of work looking for a house," a 
woman testified at the Marylebone court yesterday. The 
cause is evidently the same absence of building during the 
war as makes trouble at home. The sale of municipal bonds 
for furthering the erection of homes throughout the coun- 
try appears to go slowly. 

Daily the certainty of the coal strike, set now for Sep- 
tember 22, grows greater. The lack of coal has already 
caused so many empty bottoms that the freight rate on 
bacon and other incoming foods has had to be raised. 
This, with the lowered value of the pound resulting from 
lessened exports, is raising prices and making serious com- 
plications generally. Orders for American automobiles are 
being cancelled right and left: the exchange makes them 
entirely too expensive. Evidently our friends over in 
Detroit and Cleveland are going to pay the price of the un- 
happiness of my '^ buddies" there in the South Wales coal- 
mines and ports. So it looks as though, whether they are 
conscious of it or not, the laborers of the world — also the 
capitalists — depend for their bread and butter — or jam and 
cake — ^upon the well-being of not only their fellow laborers, 
but also their fellow capitalists all over the world. 



270 FULL UP AND FED UP 

Thursday afternoon, 
September 16th. 

"The bloo-ody rine (rain) don't mike no difference to 
the bleedin' gulls, do it?" said a husky worker, waiting in 
the line to carry the empty fish boxes back to the waiting 
lighters there at Billingsgate early this morning. 

Apparently the laborers come here from all over London. 
Many of them have lurid tattoo marks on their husky arms, 
others wear the coat of an old soldier, or perhaps the sweat- 
rag of the fireman, with, occasionally, a smashed-in derby 
or dicer in memory of better days. Most of the carriers 
wear a huge hat heavily padded, nevertheless the strain on 
the neck and shoulders must be great enough when a fellow 
starts off with a box weighing 150 pounds or so, which it 
has taken two men to lift up onto his crown. The place is 
surely a lively combination of the aroma of steaming crabs 
or lobsters, sloppy floor, dripping oilskins, sweating work- 
ers and yelling salesmen: 

"'Ere you are, sir! Sixpence the pound! Right 'ere!'' 
' ^ Wot cheer, there. Bill ? " " Gangway ! Gangway, please ! ' ' 
— ^with perhaps a "Thank you!^' as you turn to find a man 
about ready to throw his box of fish at your feet. 

Before the middle of the morning it is almost as quiet as 
the old church next door. In the effort to secure that empty 
bunk in the forecastle, I followed the advice of the clerk in 
the seamen's room to visit the American boats in the harbor, 
away down the river. But with them all coal appears too 
important and time too unimportant: 

"Well, we shan't be in Hamburg more than a month — 
that is, if we don't bunker there. But if the strike comes 
on, we'll have to," was the testimony gained on board a 
big merchantman, full of lumber from Scandinavia and the 
Baltic. 

"D — d slim, I'd say," said the chief engineer of another 



LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 271 

big freighter, when asked about the chance of getting back 
to God^s country. ^^Two weeks from now at least before 
we sail for home via Holland.'' 

'^Nine months weVe been out of San Francisco — ^with 
lumber to South America, and then frozen meat from there,'' 
said a group of four clean-cut but homesick American boys 
in a very decent-looking ^^fo'c'sle." '^ That's too long with- 
out a sight of home. Thank God, we're paid off to-night. 
. . . Yes, there's bedbugs all over the place now, though 
we've worked hard to stop 'em. But they give us pretty 
good food, and these quarters aren't bad. Hot and cold 
water you'll find in the showers across there, with clean 
towels and everything." 

Everybody on all the boats to-day, and at the seamen's 
room all week, is sure that the American sailor now enjoys 
the best conditions of any in the world. The diflSculty 
seems to be that with jobs ordinarily so plentiful in America, 
the months away from home appear to spell the height of 
unhappiness and dislocated living. 

Alongside these boys were Norwegians, who have been 
away from home uninterruptedly for seven years, without 
apparently minding it in the least. ''Gotta make a livin' 
somehow, don't you?" one of them put it after he had 
told of keeping in fairly close touch with his friends, 
from one of whom he'd had a nice long letter — six years 
ago! 

On the way back into the city a negro told of his birth 
in French territory on the African Coast, and of his last 
seven years and British citizenship in the British army: 

''My friend in jail" — business of thumb to mouth with 
head thrown back to indicate the reason. "Fined seven 
shillings, sixpence. I go up to pay and get him out. Cana- 
dian he is. Know him only one week, but he speak to me 
nice language — ^friendly, you know? . . • W'iskey is bad 



272 FULL UP AND FED UP 

for poor man. . . . But me, I drink four w'iskies and no 
get drunk. Get out here. Good-by.'' 

Later an electrician got into the compartment: 

^^ There's a big difference, I tell you, out there in America — 
I mean Canada. You go right up to a foreman and talk 
to 'im like Tom, Dick, or Harry. O' course, you know 
^e's a foreman, and you respects 'im, but there's none of 
this 'ere clawss idea. 

'^And when they puts in machinery, they don't let it , 
wear itself out like of old age — you know what I mean? I 
They expects to ride with the times and scrap it when a i 
better one comes along. 'Ere they use it till it's worn out. 
I've seen it many times as old as the factory. Old, they 
are, and slow — and dangerous. ... I came back from there 
durin' '15. Slack work there was out there, and all closed 
down like a drum. They refused me in the army here. 
For why? I don't know. 

'^Anyway, our union — the Electrical Trades, it is — 'as 
progressed by leaps and bounds. The leaders are playing 
big right now. They're going to make us the key industry, 
though the mawsters are plain nawsty, with the lock-out 
and all, up North. There's points on both sides, and that's 
part of the inquiry they're going to make. The govern- 
ment's too wise to set its 'ead against us right now.'^ 

''Fed up ! I don't care a rap what happens now. Coal 
strike or not — what's the use?" This was the wail of a 
fairly prosperous-looking passenger at a station where a 
change had to be made. ''J. H. Thomas, it looks like to 
me, is on both sides — ^runs with the hares and hunts with 
the hounds. Smillie wants nothing but Bolshevism. I 
have a friend just back from Russia. He says it's awful. 
Conscripting labor and no two laborers from the same town 
allowed together in the same gang so that 'townies' can't 
get together and get their wind up." (Make trouble.) 

At any rate the experience of ten or fifteen days' work on 



LIVING THE DOUBLE LIFE IN LONDON 273 

the ocean home is apparently to be denied — for longer 
waiting is impossible. At that, I guess I can get along 
with having done it twice in college days — though, of course, 
the cattle puncher's work is different from the deck-hand's 
or the oiler's job that I've been hoping for. 

Later. — The hoped-for ship seems to have come at last! 
have just learned by 'phone that an American skipper is 
there at this moment taking on a full crew for an immediate 
^tart for New York ! So here goes to taste again the joys 
of the fo'c'sle. Here's hoping that all the stories and sights 
of this morning are correct in painting huge improvement 
in the life on the bounding main over that of twenty years 
ago. 

Friday, September 17th. 

For a moment yesterday afternoon it looked as though 
everything was all set for departure Saturday on board a 
big freighter. Everybody in the seamen's room was smiling 
the proud smile of self-respecting holders of real jobs by 
the time I got there. 

^' Oiler, messman, or deck-hand," was the catalogue I 
gave of my seafaring abiUties when the skipper asked if I 
was a full-fledged American and had had experience. 

'^AU right, we'll take you on as an oiler. Got your pass- 
port? Well, bring it here to-morrow morning at nine all 
ready to sign on. We sail Saturday at ten." 

All the way between him and the door I was seeing my- 
self in the hot engine-room, listening to the hopes and fears 
of my fellow workers in between the throbs of the big en- 
gine of the great boat through all the hours of the next 
fifteen days — or would it be fifteen, or only ten, or maybe 
even twenty? 

'^New York?" said the skipper when I went back to 
ask him. "Why, we get to New York quite shortly. 



274 FULL UP AND FED UP 

First we go to Antwerp and then to New York — via South 
America!^' 

And to think that if I had signed on and then had failed 
to turn up this morning, I could have been arrested and 
sent to jail as a deserter ! 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE WORST JOB YET 

Friday, September 24th, 
On board S.S. Mauretania, 

The chief event of this luxurious passage home has been 
the suddenness of the shift of my psychological gears from 
high to low — and reverse — ^yesterday afternoon. As a matter 
of fact, it came mighty close to '^stripping" them. 

One-thirty saw me enjoying all the gastronomical mag- 
nificence of Mrs. Mauretania's French chef — good luck and 
friends got me on board here in spite of trying for my 
first-cabin ticket only one day before sailing. Two o'clock 
found me in old pants and shirt and sweat-rag, shovel in 
hand, taking lessons in the strenuous art of stoking. Talk 
about high dives ! That was the tallest and quickest dive 
from tip-top luxury to bottom-scraping hard labor my 
imagination can picture ! 

Strenuous and bottom-scraping — these surely are the 
words ! I never knew that even half an hour could be so 
tragically long, nor the three-minute interval of the gaffer's 
shovel on the ship's steel bottom so disastrously short! 
The first bangety-bang of that shovel makes you jump to 
shut off the drafts and swing open the great door of the 
first — ^and highest — of the three cavernous furnaces assigned 
you. With the light of the roaring holocaust burning out 
your eyes and scorching your forearms, you catch up your 
shovel and throw pounds and pounds from the floor at 
your feet into the flames until you have filled up the entire 
opening. '^Let 'em slide off-like, for'rd — there, like that!" 
Then quick ! you drive the great poker into the mass near 
the grates and lift it carefully so as to help the air through. 

275 



276 FULL UP AND FED UP 

Quick again — for every instant of open doors means cold 
air for the cooling of the water and the lessening of the 
precious steam — quick, to close doors and turn on blasts, 
and then on to feed the burning hunger — ^and feel the fear- 
ful heat — of fire number two. At last it is fed, closed, and 
given the draft — ^but your heart sinks as the gaffer^s shovel 
bangs it into you that you are losing time ! You double your 
speed on number three and with that done you hurry to 
open number one again. With your long, heavy rake you 
put all the strength of your shoulders and front trunk into 
the work of pushing the coals back toward the far end of 
the bed. Now you're about even with your job. A short 
pause, a quick catching of your breath, a dry spitting out 
of cotton-like coal-dust, the glimpsing of the whites of 
black-rimmed eyes and of shining sweat streams down the 
blackened faces of your fellows moving through the dust- 
filled darkness, and then again the bangety-bang of the 
gaffer's signal. Again the heat on eyes and face and arms, 
and again the shovel, remembering to use your back-swing 
to give it distance, and then to let it slide off ^^ easy-like,'^ 
without pushing the shovel too high. 

^^ Alius keep 'er pushed back, with a good body — ^about 
four inches from the top — that's wot gets us into port. 
There, she's just right," your buddy yells into your ear 
above the noise. 

^'Come on, now — ^wot's the idea? A little more sweat 
there now on the rake," calls the gaffer to a group of black, 
sweat-striped backs. 

'^Gangway! Gangway!" shouts the triromer as he 
emerges from the dusty blackness of the bunkers. 

'^Clangety-clang!" sunmions the gaffer's signal. 

^'More coal!" roars out of the open door of fire number 
two. 

'^Wha-n-g!" whines your shovel on the ship's steel floor 
before it gets its load. 



THE WORST JOB YET 277 

After hardly an hour of such muscular effort as I think 
I never experienced before I was almost j&nished. 

Shortly the fire had to be '' drawn. '^ That meant getting 
the hot coals all to one side, then raking down to the front 
the huge clinkers; some of them were bigger than the door 
and so had to be broken with the poker. With one foot 
upon the pile of hot clinkers already fallen on the floor, 
you put your whole back and body into bringing the others 
down to the mouth after you have swung the great rake 
as far back as it will go. Then you spread your fire over 
the grates, and then again more coal. Later the ashes, still 
hot at your feet, must be shovelled into the mechanical 
ejector, for carrying to the boat's side and out into the 
water. 

It was a shameful moment when finally I had to ask for 
transfer to the trinamer's job for fear that my first week 
on shore would be in bed. The difference is hardly as great 
as might be wished. Somehow or other the heavy wheel- 
barrow has to be got into the narrow place where the curved 
ribs and side of the boat make awkward pockets in which 
the shovelling of coal is extremely difl&cult. You can 
scarcely see your buddy a few feet away for the black dust. 
Then the iron barrow must be pushed out onto the floor 
of the fire-room. With a run and a yell you use your skill 
to overend the heavy load at precisely the right spot for 
the fireman to find his pile. 

On either job there is a good deal of air from the venti- 
lators if you stand exactly at the right place beneath the 
ventilators. But elsewhere — especially before the open 
doors or near the hot ashes— phew ! 

'^If ye find it 'ot 'ere ye should come with me of a nice 
summer's dye down to the Red Sea, where there's never a 
breath of a breeze. Twenty-eight year I've 'ad of this, 
and I'm tellin' ye, this is the coolest and comfortablest yet ! 
Twenty-eight year and seven times over the seven seas and 



278 FULL UP AND FED UP 

all ! Only once on an oU-bumer — ^with a 'ard time tryin^ 
to keep awake/^ 

The most comfortable sensation enjoyed in years came 
from the cool air of the deck, after what seemed miles of 
ladders to the showers of the second cabin, before daring 
to show my face back in the first cabin. Burns of arms and 
face and hands, also of the foot which got against the huge 
poker on the floor, will keep me in remembrance of the after- 
noon for quite some time — to say nothing of dead-tired 
muscles all over my body. Luckily, the labor did not bring 
^^the bends/^ These are the bane of the fireman^s life. 
When their sudden knotting of the muscles across the 
stomach follows suddenly on that back-breaking pull-down 
upon the rake, men are said to fall and writhe in agony on 
the floor, insensible to the lesser pains of all the burns in- 
flicted by the red-hot ashes. 

To-day I hardly knew whether to feel glad or mad as 
the result of my further study of this worst of jobs. Back 
among the stokers I inquired this afternoon how they can 
stand such fierce exertion, even for the four hours on and 
the eight hours off. Here's the answer: 

^'WuU, if a mon goes along with the gang, as 'e should, 
^e cawn't lawst. What yer do is ter do number one fire 
with yer coal and all. Then yer opens up number two, 
like this, ye see? There ye are, ready, like. Then yer 
tikes a look to see if the gaffer's lookin'. Like as not 'e 
eyen't. Then yer close up number two door and thot's 
done ! Then yer opens up number three and if Mr. Gaf- 
fer's not lookin', yer slams 'er shut and turns on the air 
'ard, like, and then yer through — awnd witin' on the lead- 
er's shovel. Course yesterday yer couldn't do thot 'cause 
yer mon was the only one of the boat as tikes 'is three fires 
regular like. The best fireman on the boat, 'e is, we'll all 
sye, though 'e eyen't 'ad a sober dye on land in twenty 
year. 



THE WORST JOB YET 279 

'^ WuU, o' course we trimmers, wull, our job would be bad 
— ^lookitt^ after six firemen — if it wasn't that they eyen't 
goin' through full, like 'e syes to yer. Then, too, if they 
^as British coal it's bad, but on Yankee coal — thot's better 
— that is, better for us, y' understawnd? — because the 
bloo-ody stuff's got dirt in it — it won't burn, so it lawsts 
longer ! 

"Yes, on American boats they're ^ found ^ in towels and 
soap with bed-linen weekly, with shower-baths and good 
food. 'Ere yer furnishes yer own soap and towels, and knife 
and fork, and so on — sl steward 'as just swiped an outfit 
for me from the third class — ^mine bein' missin', y' under- 
stawnd? Worst of all, yer fights 'ere for yer food. They 
brings it on in one big dish, y' see, and the best getter gets 
it. Yer gets a big fine, too, for bringin' booze on board — 
or a knife or a pistol. And yer gets two days off and five 
bob for talkin' back to an engineer, to say nothin' of twenty 
pounds and two or three months for jumpin' a boat before 
the voyage is ended — ^and ye're caught the minute ye gets 
back on the next trip, and yer can't get onto another boat 
without yer book givin' the years of yer service and all. 
And yer can't get that from yer company except when yer 
gets back from yer trip. So how to get onto another job 
in any other country, I don't know." 

Among them was a chap whose hand was the most awful 
collection of burns, blisters, and yellow sores my eyes have 
ever seen. Ever since the dreadful sight my own hand 
has been all but twitching and my shoulders contracting 
at the memory of it. That's because once yesterday I 
started to pick up what looked like a perfectly cold — ^be- 
cause perfectly black — poker. Luckily a yell from a friend 
gave warning. Since then I had thought that even at the 
worst I could have dropped it too quickly to have received 
any serious burn. My friend this afternoon lifted his dread- 
ful hand to give a fearful testimony: 



280 FULL UP AND FED UP 

^^Drop it? 0^ course I tried to drop the bloo-ody poker ! 
But I couldn't ! The bleedin' thing 'ad burned so far into 
me 'and that all the fat of me stuck to it and 'eld it there 
a-burnin' all the bloo-ody w'ile! My God, 'twas awful! 
Now I'm laid off and two others 'ave to ^ do a deuce' for 
it. Each of them, y' see, does six hours instead of four — 
and not a penny extra for it, either." 

Those were, perhaps, the two I saw stripped in the 
showers and all but dead to the world with their fatigue 
after their six hours. 

And there are 250 of these men on board — less than 
usual because one of our four huge funnels, with its six 
boilers and their forty-eight fires is not working — con- 
juring up the steam required to take all these tons and 
tons of ease and comfort into port. No wonder that men 
are anxious to see the oil-burners come in, even though 
that some of my friends will wonder ^'w'ere the bloo-ody 
'ell's a mon's goin' to get a job, eh?" For some, the first 
news of the new burners will mean a drinking bout — the 
drinking bout which follows hard upon either good news or 
bad, unpleasant anticipations or otherwise: 

'^The first time in a long time it was thot I was droonk. 
Well, y' see, the 'ole blinkin' voyage yer cawn't drink 
nothin'. Then yer gets on shore and yer wants ter buy 
somethin' fine fer the wife and yer cawn't do as well for 
'er as ye'd like. So yer ends oop by mikin' a bloo-ody 
beast of yerself — awnd in the mornin' all yer money's 
gone!" 

Well, if I were to land at home after days and weeks of 
such work — perhaps with such a hand and the memory 
of that poker sticking tight to it — that horrible poker that 
would not drop! — I wonder what I'd do. Involuntarily 
my shoulders register uncertainty. 

To-morrow there will be the landing — ^unless, as one of 
the sailors put it, '^unless this bleedin' fog piles us up on 



THE WORST JOB YET 281 

the bloo-ody beach!'' What different things that landing 
will mean to us all — ^by reason of the different parts of the 
boat our different jobs have permitted us to occupy ! 

For one worker — the imposing-looking deck-steward: 
''This trip 'as been a royal 'oliday. That's because every- 
body dresses for dinner — and eats it — in the dining-room. 
That gives us a chawnce to put everything away and get 
to bed at a fair hour/' 

Saturday evening, Sept. 25th, 
New York City. 

What prosperous people these Americans appear to be ! 
Every shop girl or stenographer must have a week's wages 
on her back ! 

How many automobiles there are in the world ! All day 
I've been scared for my life every time I've crossed the 
street. No wonder many of them have the protection of 
a bumper both at front and back — ^in line with the incred- 
ulous query of a South Wales mine manager. 

How rapid the elevators are! It's a wonder that they 
stop at the top and bottom without a smash. 

What a delight it is to telephone with only one coin to 
be put into the slot ! 

And not a drunken man or woman to be seen on the 
streets ! 

What a Babel of languages is spoken here in between 
the occasional English— or American ! 

And how similar are the problems here, according to the 
taxi-driver from the dock: 

^^ Here's my brother. Helped to make the world safe 
and all that — and got a bad wound over there. And what 
does he get for it? Nothin' but a bum job — ^after leavin' 
a good one to go.'' 



PART II 
ONE INTERPRETATION 



ONE INTERPRETATION 

CHAPTER IX 

"FULL UP'J 

Cleveland, Ohio, 
July, 1921. 

The past few months have been among the most critical 
in British history. Is there any interpretation of the ex- 
periences and testimonies of the foregoing pages which will 
throw light upon these months, and at the same time help 
to a better understanding of the more fundamental and 
permanent factors of both Britain's and America's indus- 
trial problems? 

Those well-known angels who ^'fear to tread'' in difficult 
places, fly circles around my pen as I attempt that inter- 
pretation after so short a contact with the unskilled laborer 
in so small a sector of the country's entire industrial front. 
All I can do is to promise to give to other interpretations 
the same open-minded considerations which I bespeak for 
this one. 

^' Full up!" 

These two words supply, in my opinion, the key for 
understanding modern British life. This modern British 
Ufe is lived in a crowded country. In this crowded country 
jobs are scarce. 

The summer's ubiquitous "Full up!" was much more 
than merely the result of the war. For a very long time 
Britain has been the self-acknowledged land of the narrow 
margin between the number of available jobs and the num- 
ber of people who need them for their daily bread and 
butter. It evidently expects to be so for a long time to 
come. British life — social and political as well as indus- 
trial — is largely what it is to-day as the result of this tra- 

285 



286 FULL UP AND FED UP 

ditional condition, this acknowledgment, and this expec- 
tation. 

''No, sir, yer eyen't got no oj05ce-boy, gov^nerl— not 
unless yer tikes me on — cause 'e^s just been runned over!" 

The story tells why the ordinary British factory needs 
no employment office bigger than the gaffer's hat. It is 
matched by a more recent statement of the same pressure 
at the other end of the social scale: 

''AH of us applicants for one of the best 'berths' in the 
whole civil service — it pays more than 1,000 pounds — ^had 
first to go through a sort of oral elimination contest. Cer- 
tain physical or other obvious defects barred one com- 
pletely. Lack of a war record was completely insurmount- 
able. If a chap volunteered in September, 1914, he was 
asked the cause of his delay! A large number, of course, 
dropped out. Nevertheless there still remained of us who 
took an examination which required the highest educational 
and cultural equipment possible to obtain in England, a 
total of nearly 300!'' 

"When my engagement to Mr. Asquith was announced," 
writes the author of the famous diary, "a number of my 
friends asked me if I did not consider that I was doing a 
very unsafe thing to marry a man who, though brilliant at 
the law, was nevertheless entirely dependent for his living 
upon his earnings." / 

So also in the world of British business the son who 
succeeds to the management of the long-established con- 
cern is counselled by the same general scarcity of "berths" 
to a policy of marked conservatism. Otherwise he may 
endanger the family's inherited guarantee of both their 
sustenance and their social rank. For still others the same 
situation, strange as it may seem, makes complete leisure 
almost imperative. 

"You see," explained an American woman whose brother 
is one of the comparative few with us who find themselves 



'^FULL UP!'' 287 

in somewhat the same situation, ''he could not get a busi- 
ness position of the importance required by his social stand- 
ing without investing rather heavily. But if he did that, 
then he might lose the whole of his share of our father's 
estate. That gives him enough to live on in comfort pro- 
vided he does not lose iV^ 

It is these various considerations which give the reason 
for the importance of our philosopher friend's ''Old Gold." 
But the old gold thus represented by the possession of a busi- 
ness or of stocks and bonds furnishes more than a guaran- 
tee of economic safety and more than a selfish prohibition of 
work. The appreciation of that universal "Full up ! " means 
that any one who does not need a job ought not to take one. 
If he does, he thereby lessens by that much the chances of 
those who do need one. Where, therefore, the old gold is 
suflBcient, the supposedly lucky owner is almost forced into 
either politics or sport if he would enjoy some sense of dis- 
tinction in ways worthier than merely by conspicuous ex- 
penditure. As a matter of fact the popularity or good-will 
gained in sport in a sport-loving country may quite easily be 
capitalized at the polls for the start of a worthy poUtical 
career. 

All these various considerations, also, make it plain 
enough how he who lacks the old gold of past earning power 
comes to consider that the family job makes a perfectly 
good form of property for passing earning power on down 
to his children, and his children's children. Thus a success- 
ful American ship-builder: 

'"If this berth has been good enough for me for forty 
years — and for my father before me — I don't see why it 
isn't good enough for you.' That's what my father back 
in Scotland said to me when I told him I wanted to take 
a chance and try my fortune abroad. I had just passed, at 
twenty-one, the examination which showed that I could 
expect to succeed him without difficulty as head of a small 



288 FULL UP AND FED UP 

government shipyard. So, in a way, I was a made man. 
That meant, of course, not only security but a lot of social 
.prestige. As to that, even when I became a foreman a 
few years earlier, the older men among whom I had grown 
up as a boy immediately stopped calling me Tom — from 
that very day it was always ^Mr.^ And if I had — after 
that day — asked one of them to ride home with me, I would 
have lost 'face^ all over the place. Following my refusal 
of my father's job — that was twenty years ago — the old 
gentleman has never spoken a single word to me!" 

Thus from bottom to top a whole people finds it necessary 
to adjust itself in one way or another to the whip of that 
^'FuU upP' As a result — and a far-reaching result — a 
whole people comes naturally to give its chief attention to 
security rather than to opportunity. Those who like to 
^Hake a chance" it tends to consider not courageous but as 
foolhardy and almost dangerous citizens. In a word, the 
whole people combines to make by its universal approvals 
the greatest of social virtues out of the art — and the science 
— of 'Splaying safe." 

The holding of the job thus comes enormously to exceed 
in importance the making and the development of it. Thus 
the earning of a living comes to be robbed of the spirit of 
adventure: it is too serious a matter to permit the pleasures 
of risk. The satisfaction of the exploit — the thrill of excite- 
ment which comes from playing with not too dangerous 
uncertainties and the exercise of skill and judgment in their 
handling — these may be found elsewhere, if necessary, but 
surely not on the job. If you should lose or endanger 
that, what then ? — not only for yourself and your bread and 
butter, but for your children and your children's children ! 

It is this, without doubt, which largely accounts for the 
national institution of the ^^ bookie." The winning of that 
lucky thirty-three to one shot had practically no financial 
value for my miner friend there in the South Wales ^^pub" 



^TULL UP!'' 289 

after he left the course. But it is one of his life's ''high 
spots." Up to the day of his death he will lick the chops 
of his pride with the sweet pleasure of the homage of his 
admiring and envious friends and listeners. Here at home 
we get much the same excitements and the same pleasures. 
But we get them mainly from our business — our job. With 
us the day's work is much more of a game. We forget that 
we are much freer to play this game only because if we 
lose we are so much freer to find other opportunities to 
start over again. One of our large institutions for corre- 
spondence study has received in the course of a compara- 
tively few years, tuitions totalUng more than $100,000,000 ! 
In a very real sense these are the wagers laid down by 
thousands and thousands of young-men gamblers. But 
they are gambhng on themselves and their own possibili- 
ties ! The chances are that they are too intent upon this 
game to care to give much time for the horses, the whippets, 
the pigeons, or even ''the 'ymns." 

Likewise in the matter of the nation-wide popularity of 
John Barleycorn. Bad jobs, with their usual accompani- 
ment of bad living conditions, and with, especially, poor 
prospects of getting a "jump" or other chance up and out 
of them into lines guarded by that closed door of the gaf- 
fer's "Full up!" — it is these that furnish the source of the 
thirst of millions of men. It is these that give to John 
Barleycorn a smiling face in the eyes of millions of the 
world's least successful workers. For to these he promises 
those dehghtful satisfactions of successful exploit which are 
always hungered for in the hearts of even the lowUest men, 
but which their jobs refuse. To such as these old Blear- 
Eyed John promises a delightful short-circuit into exactly 
that golden age of comfort, self-respect, and achievement 
which their conditions deny. 

"The drunker ye be, the less ye'll be a-mindin' o' the 
flies and the bugs," according to my near down-and-out 



290 FULL UP AND FED UP 

friend of the Northwest's construction camps. ''And when 
ye sober up, ye're used to 'em. See?'' 

'^I just Uke to drink enough," said old Uncle Zeke, who 
knew, as long as he was sober, that his best working-days 
in the steel plant were gone, ^^I just like to drink enough 
to get the feelin' of me old position back, like." 

From that same fundamental factor also of scarce jobs, 
chronically scarce jobs, comes that division of '^ class" — 
that everlasting '^Workin' clawss, we are, ye know!" 
When you can get, at fourteen or at twenty-one, the job 
which you can pretty confidently expect— with good luck — 
to hold on to until you're old and pensioned, then you have 
the makings of class lines. At least you have the retention 
of them instead of that destruction of them which might 
be expected in any industry which offered full opportunity 
for men to rise in responsibility as rapidly as their abilities 
and capacities developed. Nothing is more important to 
understand, and at all times to remember, than this: that 
among an industrial people social levels — the level of the 
worker, and particularly the standing of his wife and family 
in the community — tend to follow job levels. So where the 
demonstration of ability can be counted upon to bring 
recognition and the chance at a better job, there a man will 
always endeavor to finish his industrial career at a social 
level above that of the stage of entrance. Those who suc- 
ceed in this are playing the game of the job successfully; 
they cannot know much about the restrictions of ''class," 
because their developing abilities and their expanding re- 
sponsibilities cause their "class" from year to year, or 
decade to decade, to change ! 

Education will, of course, have much to do with the 
abihty of such men to expand their powers as rapidly as 
the job may require. But we undoubtedly assign too great 
an importance to the schools when we assume that differ- 
ences of education are, in themselves and alone, mainly 



^TULL UP!^' 291 

responsible for the ordinary differences of '^class.'^ Edu- 
cational facilities have to depend for their effectiveness upon 
their use. They will not be used if their users find no 
*^ berth'' which permits the practical — and the properly 
recognized — ^application of the newly developed abilities* 
This depends upon the width or narrowness of that margin 
between the number of jobs and the number of persons 
who need them. 

In the same way this same national margin must be kept 
constantly in mind in trying to understand the part played 
by the labor unions. He confuses results with causes who 
considers them the most important and compelling part of 
modern British industry. They are, perhaps, the most out- 
standing. They do, perhaps, try to exert too strong a 
pressure in certain directions. But, after all is said and 
done, they must be seen as organized agencies by which 
the worker aims to adapt himself to that scarcity of the 
job, and to that scarcity of both social and industrial oppor- 
tunity which follows close upon it. Finding the job and 
then holding it against the possibiUty of all arbitrary 
tyranny — ^the prime importance of at least these two ser- 
vices of the union is driven home into men's very souls 
every time the gaffer shrugs his shoulder and utters that 
dreadful but decisive ''Full up!" 

But these two functions of the union are only the begin- 
ning. At every stage the worker — like everybody else — 
is facing the question of method raised by his self-respect: 
''You wish, of course, to 'get on' and 'count' and be 
somebody if at all possible. All right. But howf Will 
you try it by yourself or with your fellow workers? Will 
you go it alone or with your trade, your class, or, in short, 
your union?" Ordinarily the man who finds the going 
good "on his own" seldom feels the necessity of joining his 
group, even though he has to meet the heavy pressure ex- 
erted to obtain his class loyalty. Where, however, jobs 



292 FULL UP AND FED UP 

are so scarce that it is over-risky to leave one place in the 
hope of a better, then the only elevator up is likely to appear 
the one which his group, or class, is able to organize. Thus 
the craft or trade-union develops for maintaining the indus- 
trial and social status of the steamfitters, for instance, in 
comparison with the electrical workers, and for advancing 
the standing of them both in comparison with all the rest 
of us. 

The nation-wide acceptance of the British union can, 
therefore, be seen as a practical acknowledgment of the 
lessened opportunity of the individual. Only one form of 
opposition to these group, or class stairways will, in the 
long run, succeed in directing into other channels the huge 
pressure of men's wish to believe in themselves and their 
individual worth — their increasing individual worth. That 
is the form which arranges to furnish so large a measure of 
opportunity to each individual, as an individual, as to 
make him unwilling to accept the mass measures of the 
union at the price asked. 

In the same way, also, the causes of wide-spread restriction 
of output go down deep, not simply into unionism, but to 
the more fundamental conditions which call forth the de- 
sire for unionism and its works. Let a man live for years 
under the daily pressure of that narrow margin between 
job and no job, let him observe, day after day, that when 
some men work it appears to mean that for exactly that 
reason other men cannot work, then the most important 
factor in his whole life is sure to be the conviction that there 
simply isn't enough work to go 'round. To us it may 
seem very selfish that such a man is unwilling, under the 
circumstances, to give himself the satisfaction of a good 
day's work. Personally I am sure that the average^worker 
would rather have that satisfaction every night than to 
carry home his dinner pail with the knowledge that he has 
spent his day in shirking. The ambitious but unhappy 



^'FULL UP!^' 293 

worker at the gate of the Woolwich arsenal is only one 
among scores of others whom I can recall in both countries. 
The trouble is that, especially in Britain, but also, to an 
enormously greater extent than ought to be true, in America, 
the worker has been taught by his own sad experience 
to consider that such spiritual satisfaction for himself may 
rob some other fellow worker of his very bread and butter ! 

Still further, and finally, it is that same ^^FuU up!'' 
which makes the craft strike an extremely costly tool for 
the holding of estabUshed class or trade advantages, or the 
gaining of new ones. In the nature of the case, the strike's 
seriousness to the worker increases very rapidly where the 
margin of living is already very narrow in his particular 
field, and more or less non-existent in other related lines 
into which he might beat a retreat. This means that these 
narrow-margin workers will make great effort to strengthen 
themselves by amalgamation with their friends who pos- 
sess both the wider margins and the greater influence of 
more skilled jobs. It also means that in a country of nar- 
row margins such an amalgamation will try to save the 
cost of the strike wherever possible by developing the power 
of its political influence. 

It is necessary, as we have seen, to have this latter devel- 
opment very much in mind in order to understand the set- 
ting of the present stage of British industry. Doubtless 
it is even more necessary to keep it in mind in connection 
with the near future. But before discussing that we ought 
to ask this question: 

"If these various considerations have followed upon the 
gradual lessening of industrial opportunity under the pres- 
sure of the gaffer's 'Full up!' during the course of many 
years, what has happened to give this chronic situation so 
acute a phase at this particular time?'' 



CHAPTER X 
"FED UP!'' 

The answer to that question appears to me to be this: 

The British citizen in general — also the British worker in 
particular — ^is tired. Tired and therefore touchy — danger- 
ously touchy — ^^Fed up!'' 

This condition is due partly to the long continuance, in 
certain districts, of such living conditions as Glasgow's. 
These, in turn, are one result of the country's age. Build- 
ings erected a hundred years ago in a growing city are more 
diflScult of renovation than we Americans find it easy to 
understand. Ancient working conditions, likewise, in in- 
dustries operated for generations are not easily replaced 
with up-to-date arrangements. The same pressure of the 
scanty job which holds a man to a ^^ berth" in spite of its 
bad conditions, holds him also to the same tenement — all 
the unhappier, perhaps, at the thought of his luckier friends 
employed in one of the country's garden-factory-cities. 
Upon such a worker the ease of access to the sport fields, or 
the attractive meadows surrounding the average town or 
small city is a moderating influence of great importance. 
The influence of the ^^pub" and its position as the social 
centre of the conununity is, on the whole, distinctly bad. 

Between the condition of our muscles and the moral con- 
victions of our '^mentals" a very close connection is con- 
tinuously maintained by those ever-present and ever-active 
liaison officers known as our feelings. As the result of their 
efforts we should expect that the physical conditions under 
which a considerable proportion of Britain's unskilled 
workers live and work would induce moral convictions more 

294 



^'FED UP!'' 295 

or less antagonistic if not revolutionary. During the course 
of years and decades, however, the depressed groups born 
and raised into the manifest fixedness of their condition, 
and dulled by the dreary and deceptive ministrations of 
John Barleycorn, would probably grow less and less artic- 
ulate. Such groups would require something in the nature 
of a crisis to bring their misery into any unmistakable form 
of utterance. 

The war has furnished this crisis. 

Its strains have come in every plane, physical, mental, 
and spiritual. These have brought the usual result of 
'^ Tiredness and Temper." As might be expected, this 
^^T and T,'' or ''T 'n' T,'' has demonstrated its usual pres- 
sure toward some explosive outlet. The outbreaks of un- 
rest and of disorder have been the result. 

One great spiritual barrier between America and Europe 
is that we have found it so difficult to comprehend the 
intensity of the ^^ Great Fatigue.'' This is undoubtedly 
among the most important spiritual factors in the whole 
present European situation. To be sure, we have ourselves 
experienced an extreme ^4et-d,own" from the high elations 
of our great enterprise — a let-down which shows itself in 
practically every department of our living. Nelrertheless, 
it is certain that we have largely failed to appreciate the 
full intensity of the war weariness which has followed from 
the strains of the war upon peoples for whom it was not 
only much longer but also infinitely more serious and vital 
than for us. 

The colossal physical strains of the long years of conflict 
and the spiritual elations required for enduring them, these 
together have set the stage for nation-wide — ^yes, world- 
wide — disappointment and unhappiness. By millions the 
fighters of the victorious nations came home to enjoy the 
blessings of peaceful and, therefore, presumably, of normal, 
comfortable life. Almost everywhere the post-armistice 



296 FULL UP AND FED UP 

political campaigns promised that comfort, improvement, 
and general amelioration which, in the hearts of all, was 
required to make the world worth all the blood which had 
been shed to save it. Every country was to be made ^'fit 
for heroes to live in.'^ So we all, as it were, turned down 
the covers preparatory to the first good snooze in years, 
anticipating our waking in the new era of our war-bought 
aspirations. And then it happened! Just at that very 
moment our weary ears were assailed with the wailings and 
waulings of those unruly war babies known as the high 
cost of living, dislocated and demoralized economic statuses 
and relationships, perplexed statesmen, puzzled leaders, and, 
finally, to cap the climax, millions of balky buyers ! 

The Great P ace has brought not peace but a mass of 
social, political, and economic problems of such a breadth 
and depth and height as the civilized world has never seen 
before. Those problems require for their solution wider 
information, broader experience, and deeper sympathy than 
has ever been given to the most thoughtful citizen or the 
most experienced statesman. That in itself would be bad 
enough. What is much worse is this: the problems brought 
us by the Great Peace have to be solved with the depleted 
physical, moral, and spiritual strength left us by the Great 
War. New and unexpected difficulties and obstructions have 
been piled upon the older ones. The unwonted and mis- 
understood wearinesses and weaknesses of the war have been 
piled high upon the weaknesses and wearinesses of genera- 
tions. In Britain hundreds of thousands of those young men 
who have been regularly trained and counted upon to play 
their part in working difficult things out, have never yet re- 
turned from the day they marched off as volunteers to death ! 
The situation, surely, is enough to try men's patience. Yes, 
and to break it ! 

So it is not strange if that ^^ pressure from beneath,'^ 
which is exerted by millions of workers in such a time and 



'TED UP!'^ 297 

in such a mood, comes to have, in Britain, a cutting edge — 
or, perhaps better, a needle-point which has threatened 
to prick the deUcate fabric of the whole great dirigible of 
the nation's life. 

For exactly this threat came in the form of the great 
coal strike. The lengths to which that ever-present pres- 
sure from beneath may go when the mood of men is bad, 
was never better demonstrated than by the unwilUngness 
of the strikers — against the advice of their leaders — to allow 
the manning of the mine pumps. That meant that they 
were desperately willing to run the risk of ruining not only 
their country's but their own means of livelihood. As 
might be expected, my buddies and fellow workers in the 
Rhondda mine figured conspicuously in the cabled accounts 
of the assaults made on the volunteers sent in to serve the 
pumps. 

That strike has finally been settled, not by nationalization 
but by recourse to ^^ standard wages, standard profits, and 
profit-sharing" — ^phrases of which much more is likely to 
be heard in future. But the pressure of the lower part of 
the British working world has by no means been completely 
relieved. ^'Bob" SmilHe would doubtless say again, as 
before, that it is still ^'a race between socialism and revolu- 
tion," not to mention the established order as another con- 
testant. The question is, can the pressure which arises out 
of men's moods under the compulsions of that chronic 
''Full up !" be given in these critical and acute 'Ted up !" 
days an outlet sujB&cient to avoid explosion? 

"Aye, we moost 'ave order," one of my miner friends 
used to say. His mood represents the traditional tendency 
of the Briton. This traditional view-point can be expected 
to stand strain far beyond the point where other workers 
might blow up. On the other hand, there is at the moment 
of writing a new danger factor. That is the joblessness of 
milUons of British workers. This, as I well know, is capable 



298 FULL UP AND FED UP 

of driving the most conservative of men into desperation 
through the deadUness of its demoraHzation — its daily, 
cumulative demoralization. Still further, this joblessness 
takes away from the worker the use of his usual industrial 
tool of the strike. It accordingly favors the use of poUtical 
instruments — ^and more than a few of the labor leaders are 
convinced that even these are too cumbersome for getting 
the relief demanded by workers who are too fagged and 
^'Fed up'' to be squeamish about method. 

On the whole, however, revolution is hardly likely, at 
least for the present. Of course it is quite conceivable that 
such an acute situation will result in putting the Labor party 
in power. But that is a much less extreme matter than 
we in America are apt to assume. With such a man as 
Arthur Henderson or J. H. Thomas for its Prime Minister 
any sudden modification^ of social or economic policy is 
hardly to be expected. 
The real question is: ^' After the Labor party, what?'' 
For undoubtedly the millions who exert that pressure 
from beneath will be disappointed by what the Labor 
party's leaders will be able quickly to accomplish in re- 
modelling the complicated situation of these present days 
into something nearer to the heart's desire of the nation. 
Those who have never carried responsibility for solving 
great problems generally assume that the possession of the 
power is all that is needed. They have seen the govern- 
ment make the wheels of the whole country go round for 
the successful winning of the war. They are convinced that 
Lloyd George and his associates possess to-day all the 
power for the curing of the country's ills. The difficulty is 
that the hands of these are withheld from the act of curing 
because their own personal selfishness and greed are served 
by this withholding. Disappointment is, accordingly, sure 
to come when the workers put their leaders into full posi- 
tion to apply their sympathetic hands for the sovereign 



^TED UP!'' 299 

cure and then behold them, for some strange reason, hesi- 
tant — ^with the ills of high cost of Uving, unemployment, 
etc., still persisting ! In such a case I can hear my friends 
saying over their beer: ^'A fair wash-out they are — ^like all 
the rest of 'um ! Speakin' us fine words till they get their 
canes and their fine clothes and all, and then forgettin' of 
us!" 

'^True enough," will then come the answer of the extrem- 
ists and the revolutionists. ' ' They've let you down, all right. 
Now give us the chance!" 

The worker's answer to that appeal will depend not so 
much upon his thinking as upon his feeling at the moment 
— ^upon his mood. That mood, in turn, will depend upon 
the abihty of the leaders of the present and the early future 
— ^whether they are of the Labor Party or of the present 
government— to assuage by degrees the acuteness of that 
dangerous 'Ted up" spirit and to direct its pressure into 
constructive channels for the betterment of the life of all 
the country's workers. This, it appears to me, can only 
be accomplished by lessening in some way the pressure of 
that everlasting ''Full up!" 

With hardly a moment's hesitation the great majority 
of Britain's labor leaders and also of its "intellectuals" 
would reply that there is only one way to do this: either 
eliminate entirely or enormously restrict the possibility of 
private profit. According to a few, one way to do this 
would be by means of the guild socialism which would or- 
ganize the different fields of commerce and industry into 
a democracy practically free from the "mawster" and his 
profits. According to more, the better way is to so enlarge 
the powers of government in combination with the work- 
ers as to eliminate the present inequalities due to capitalism, 
and at the same time avoid the wastes and inefficiencies of 
ordinary bureaucratic control. 

Such weeks as those already described make it very easy 



300 



FULL UP AND FED UP 



for any one to sympathize with those who feel that the 
estabUshed arrangement of matters social and industrial in 
Britain must somehow be made to show improvement on 
behalf of millions of humans — ^huge improvement. At the 
same time the same short weeks make an observer wonder 
whether those who hope and work for radical change are 
not too close to see fully the complications introduced into 
the problem by two considerations — ^two considerations 
which appear to a visitor particularly to distinguish the in- 
dustrial situation in Great Britain. 



t 



CHAPTER XI 

HOW MANY JOBS TO A NATION? 

Of these two considerations the first is this: Within the 
last few years the socialization of the job by means of the 
socialization of the state has become more a matter of in- 
ternational relations and policy than of national. 

This has special bearing on the case of Great Britain. It is 
only necessary to Uve where jobs are scarce in order to learn 
that the job is one of the realest and most vital forms of prop- 
erty. Those who live where this appreciation is general come 
altogether easily to the belief that government should con- 
cern itself immensely more with the property of jobs — ^with 
wages, hoiu-s, and other job conditions — ^and immensely 
less with the property of bricks and acres, stocks and con- 
tracts. There on the job is where most men live — especially 
those whose most compelling fact is the narrowness of their 
money margin. It must be said that the law-makers find 
it difficult to meet the workers there. These, on the other 
hand, find it very difficult to see any connection between 
their pay envelopes and the ^country's conunissioner of 
commerce at the capital, or its ambassador abroad — ^mat- 
ters which appear of so much concern to the law-makers. 
Nevertheless, it is to-day impossible to talk about the 
maintenance of jobs, and of the conditions of living which 
depend upon them, without keeping in mind, at the same 
time, the exigencies of commercial competition with other 
nations. Thus labor and government come in these present 
days to have about as much trouble understanding each 
other as labor and capital. 

'^Before the war it cost in wages 6s. lid to produce a 

301 



302 FULL UP AND FED UP 

ton of coal/' said Lloyd George to the British people, in 
the effort to convince them that the wages and profits men- 
tioned by the miners are not constants like '^a'' or '^b/' but 
highly undependable and uncertain ^^x's'' in the equation 
of the nation's jobs and economics, and therefore of its 
government. ^^Last year it cost 25s. 9d. in wages to pro- 
duce a ton, and by February that had gone up to 27s. 
That is, it costs four times as much in wages to produce a 
ton as it did before the war. That does not mean that the 
wages have gone up four times, but that the output per 
man has come down. Before the war one man would turn 
out in a day twenty-one hundredweight. Last year one 
man turned out fifteen and one-half hundredweight. Think 
of that over hundreds of thousands of men — increased wages, 
diminished hours, diminished output, impaired efficiency, 
costs all around going up. How can we compete in the 
markets of the world with that going on? For one reason 
and another the output in America has gone up, very 
largely due to improved machinery and to the fact that the 
coal seams in America are very much thicker than ours. 
You cannot use machinery in our coal pits that you can 
use in some of the American pits. That makes it more 
incumbent that we should do everything to reduce the cost 
in this country. It is our only chance." 

It is easy for the worker to believe that he would have 
a steady job every day if only the present system did not 
make it to the ^^mawster's" interest occasionally to close 
down his plant in order to let consumption catch up with 
production. Following that it is still easier to make 'Hhe 
great assumption" — namely, that when private profit is 
taken out of industry by means of government operation, 
then all motive and all cause for unemployment ceases. 
Unfortunately, however, the question remains for the gov- 
ernment or for the private manager: ^'Can coal be raised in 
South Wales on a basis which will permit, first, successful 



HOW MANY JOBS TO A NATION? 303 

competition with other coal in the world's markets, and 
second, a fairly normal and comfortable life to the miner?'' 

The answer need not necessarily be a matter of wages and 
hours. That is a national or even a local affair. It must, 
however, be a question of something quite different, namely 
of wages per ton — of labor costs per unit of production. That 
is not only a matter of international interest, but of the 
most vital national and local importance. There is, to be 
sure, one way in which the disagreeable compulsions of this 
situation can be avoided. That is by seeing to it that all 
the competing nations arrange to socialize, or, as it were, 
''de-profit-ize" themselves at the same time, and so adapt 
their various relationships upon the basis entirely of ser- 
vice. As long as the prospects for this are as remote as 
they appear at the present moment, the disagreeable fact 
remains that domestic operation must depend upon inter- 
national competition as determined, in turn, by that ty- 
rannical factor of wages per ton. And that has now ev- 
erywhere become, like modern warfare, a matter of the 
organization of pretty much the entire resources of the 
nation. So the covering of those bottoms leaving the South 
Wales ports may demand the strength, the good-will, and 
the intelUgence not only of the country's miners, owners, 
and managers, but also of the nation's inventors, economists, 
psychologists, philosophers, and statesmen. 

The successful meeting of this vital challenge is undoubt- 
edly aided by the co-operative movement. This is now 
said to serve something like a third of the population, and 
doubtless increases to a definite extent the buying power of 
the wage dollar. On the other hand, the challenge is not 
in the least dodged or lessened in the long run by the na- 
tional institution of unemployment insurance. As has only 
recently been demonstrated, the whole of British industry 
comes to a halt shortly after its exports become no longer 
salable abroad. With British industry halted, the income 



304 FULL UP AND FED UP 

for the paying of the unemployment ^' doles ^^ comes shortly 
to an end. Neither employer, employee, nor government 
can pay its share. At the same time it is conceivable that 
the plan may help to get from all these interested parties 
the attention needed for solving the real problem — the 
problem, namely, of increasing the number of jobs — 
regular jobs. 

Definite steps in this direction of lowering production 
and distribution costs are said to be receiving the attention 
of the country. These include the projected tunnel under 
the English Channel, plans for obtaining cheap power from 
the tides of Bristol Bay, from the watercourses of Scotland 
and other parts of the country, and the ^^ Cross Canal'' for 
connecting practically all parts of industrial England. It 
is quite conceivable, also, that the government might plan 
early and extensive developments for transforming coal 
into electric power at or near pit-head, in line with the pro- 
posals of the Labor party. 

But it must be said that any government is pretty sure 
to find the early future unfriendly to these proposals, how- 
ever helpful they may prove in the long run to the reduc- 
tion of unit costs. For such projects are sure to call for 
additional increases in budgets already staggering. My 
weeks in the mine town made me feel certain that such 
expenditures would be a long time in appealing to the 
workers and their pockets, even though their value might 
be apparent to their party leaders. 

For the most part, accordingly, the number of British 
jobs will have to depend upon the condition of British in- 
dustry as a whole. That, in turn, must depend almost 
entirely upon the opportunities for British sales in the 
markets of the world. The real question then remains as 
before, whether these sales can be best advanced by means 
of the governmental or the private operation of such basic 
industries as coal, transportation, etc. 



HOW MANY JOBS TO A NATION? 305 

The second consideration stands in the way of success 
by the first of these methods and to a less extent in the 
way of success by the second. It is this: All groups of 
people in Britain seem still to accept and practise the old 
''lump of labor" theory as propounded by the early English 
economists. The whole British public, that is, tends to 
assume that in any country the number of jobs must, in 
the nature of the case, be definitely limited and fixed — must 
be an ''a" or a ''b'' instead of an ''x." This backs up that 
manifest ''Full up!'^ and provides the social justification 
of the leisure class, and of the division between one's real 
interests and one's job. It also helps to the more or less 
general practice and acceptance of the idea of the restric- 
tion of output. Following close upon all this goes what 
might be called the "lump of trade'' idea — that the busi- 
ness of the world also runs within strictly limited boun- 
daries. Thus a certain distributor encountered a great deal 
of opposition to his establishing a distribution centre in 
London. It was assumed that his entry would subtract 
just exactly that much business from those already there. 
As a matter of fact, by the exhibition of an amazing amount 
of imagination in creating new wants in the minds of the 
district's buyers he felt that he had considerably increased 
their total expenditures not only for the benefit of himself 
but also of his competitors. 

To be sure, this traditional "lump of labor '^ theory is 
substantiated by the fixedness of class lines. For a most 
serious factor of this fixedness is that it comes to mean a 
fixedness of class abihty to develop wants and needs, and, 
therefore, to consume goods. Nothing is more certain than 
that the consumer is after all the employer of the employer 
and all his employees. The number of a country's jobs, ac- 
cordingly, becomes in a considerable degree fixed and lim- 
ited the moment the consumptive power is fixed for any 
large number of its inhabitants. In addition to this eco- 



306 FULL UP AND FED UP 

nomic evil of ^ ^ class ^' a serious count of the same sort can 
be made against John Barleycorn. Without doubt he 
serves immensely to prevent that expansion of consumptive 
power which might otherwise normally be expected to fol- 
low upon the increased earning power and purchasing power 
which has come to the British worker as the result of the 
war. 

The vicious circle of all this is given a still further twist 
by that national approval of playing safe — of holding jobs. 
One of the forms of this is the wide-spread overvaluation 
of experience as compared with study. This results in 
building a wall of discouragement to keep out those who 
might try to get onto the job by the paths of scientific train- 
ing. This discouragement of the scientific view-point, 
when taken into consideration with the non-expanding 
wants of great groups, thus produces in actuality a situa- 
tion which appears thoroughly to justify the theory of the 
fixedness of jobs and opportunity. 

Increasing the skill of the manager and the inventor 
through better technical and commercial education would 
appear one real way of breaking the hold of that vicious 
circle. Luckily more and more of the country's young men 
are entering the technical schools, and more and more of 
the university-bred men are entering business. If the uni- 
versities could introduce more courses for the psychology of 
trade and its relationships, a very real gain would doubt- 
less be made. For the graduates of such courses would 
wish to do more than simply maintain the industrial enter- 
prise in the same conditions and within the same limits as 
inherited. That would mean taking a risk — setting at 
naught the national insistence upon security. But the 
enjoyment of that risk would be necessary in order to make 
life interesting to the young man who came into the fac- 
tory or office with a full quota of technical training or prac- 
tical psychology itching for application. In the face of 



HOW MANY JOBS TO A NATION? 307 

urgent national necessity the unions would also doubtless 
show reasonable willingness to relax their present restric- 
tions. 

Without doubt, further greatly increased scientific at- 
tention could well be paid to increasing the country's ability 
to raise food — and so to increase those seven millions now 
fed by the country^s agriculture. Just what has become 
of Lloyd George's original efforts to attack this problem 
by increasing land values and land taxes, nobody seems 
fully to understand. It is doubtless one of the larger 
casualties of the war. 

Perhaps the most valuable of the results following upon 
such steps would be the lessened pressure for jobs and the 
consequently greater opportunity for the public to see how 
their number may be affected by planning. Such observa- 
tion might help displace the old idea of their fixedness. 
Such displacement appears to me of the highest importance 
not only to the maintenance of a proper standard of living 
for Britain's workers, but also to nothing less than the 
peace of the world. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE DOMESTIC PAY ENVELOPE AND '^INTERNATIONAL 
CREATIVE EVOLUTION" 

The British nation has secured its commercial pre- 
eminence mainly by means of its ability to compete success- 
fully in the international market. This has come largely, 
in turn, from the world-wide investment of British capital. 
International financing has greatly helped to the indis- 
pensable international selling. Without doubt, also, a very 
considerable factor has come from the low price of British 
goods, gained largely by the low wages paid British labor. 

That cheapness has heretofore made it largely unneces- 
sary for the British manufacturer to cut corners in costs 
per ton by means of either scientific production or scientific 
distribution. The war has now put an end to cheap British 
labor. All the force of the British workers has been strongly 
organized to make effective resistance toward any attempt 
to maintain British goods in world markets by means of a 
return to the cheap British labor of pre-war times. The 
question of continuing in foreign world markets by means 
of low unit costs together with high daily wages presents, 
therefore, to the British nation one of the most serious 
situations it has ever known. One of its university philos- 
ophers has lately said that within a hundred years or so 
England would be a clean, smokeless, residential district, to 
which the successful employers and officials of the provinces 
would retire. The manufacturers of goods and the work- 
ing population would have left England and gone out to 
the colonies for their raw materials. After the reduction 
and fabrication of these into the goods of commerce, they 

308 



THE DOMESTIC PAY ENVELOPE 309 

would be shipped directly to the point of need. Word 
comes from England at this moment that the necessity of 
exporting a considerable part of the population is already 
receiving more serious ^attention than ever before. This 
in itself is made more than ordinarily difficult as the result 
of the high cost of ships — and therefore of transportation, 
following the high cost of labor. Unfortunately, too, the 
colonies as well as practically every other part of the world, 
are equally afflicted just now with unemployment. 

But we must not here be led off into discussing the far 
future, nor into too close a consideration of the present and 
more or less transitory phase of unemployment in both 
Great Britain and the rest of the world. Doubtless within 
a year or two the present general unemployment will pass. 
Even after that, however, Great Britain will continue to be 
a land of scarce jobs, and also, probably, a land where the 
lump of labor and the lump of trade theory will be at the 
base of much of the country's thought about itself and its 
international competitors. 

It is not too much to say that the peace of the world will 
be a difficult matter unless this idea of the J&xed limitation 
of the number of jobs can somehow be robbed of its inten- 
sity not only in Great Britain but in other countries of 
Europe. This can probably only be accomphshed by a 
substitution. Such a substitution would put in the place 
of the lump of labor and the lump of trade ideas the philos- 
ophy of what might be called ^^ Creative Evolution in Busi- 
ness/' This philosophy would propose that there can be 
no fixed and limited number of jobs in the world, and there- 
fore in any nation, simply because there can be no fixed and 
limited number of human needs and human demands for 
goods and services. To increase industrial jobs, it is only 
necessary to make sure to allow the free development of 
human needs. An industrially crowded country, accord- 
ingly, is not a matter of too many people per square mile, 



310 FULL UP AND FED UP 

but rather too many potential producers in comparison with 
the consumption powers of the accessible local or foreign 
markets. 

Who can say that 1930 may not see the development of 
some now unknown field which, like the motor industry, 
will satisfy an entirely new human need and give jobs to 
its thousands and tens of thousands? Who knows but that 
the masses of China or the islands of the sea may, ten 
years from now, consume millions of pounds sterling of 
goods which, though perfectly familiar to us to-day, are 
yet perfectly unheard of by them, or at least quite definitely 
outside their present powers of consumption. 

If this is true, then any people has much to do if it is to 
make sure that the consumptive powers of all its groups 
are constantly helped to enlarge up to the hmits permitted 
by that indispensable competitive cost per ton, and by the 
equally insistent need of cheap capital to be obtained from 
their savings. In addition, every people through its gov- 
ernment or otherwise, must give close attention to the con- 
servation of its natural resources. For these provide, to 
a great extent, the natural reservoir out of which the nation 
digs its jobs. Still further, it will be forced to give close 
attention to its relations with the outer world. Otherwise 
it will be unable to put its industries into effective contact 
with either those fully developed nations or with those 
hinterland peoples of the world which, from year to year, 
emerge at the margin of interests and demands which favor 
their consumption of modern machine-made goods. 

Such an evolving demand must, of course, be met by 
constantly increased scientific operation and scientific man- 
agement unless the competitive success is to be won merely 
by cheap labor. That alternative is, by all means, to be 
avoided. In the nature of the case, it has to be paid for 
in "terms of the decreased consumption powers of the local 
or domestic working millions. 



THE DOMESTIC PAY ENVELOPE 311 

All this will not at all prevent increased competition among 
the nations, but such iacreased competition will find itself 
in contact with constantly larger and larger markets built 
up by constantly increased human needs. As long as the 
maximum of such needs is in a position to express itself, 
a successful competitor might easily succeed either in de- 
veloping new demands, or in cheapening his products to 
new levels of availability. This would, perhaps, mean not 
a lessening but an increase of the business of others. In- 
ternally, accordingly, each people will have the responsi- 
bihty of advancing the general well-being by seeing that 
within the national area the results of the evolving maxi- 
mum of needs are shared with the maximum of fairness 
between producers, distributors, and consumers at all points 
of the circle. The moment the interests of any of these 
are unfairly affected the interests of all are bound to suffer. 
It is entirely conceivable that something like ^^ standard 
wage, standard profit, and profit-sharing'^ will be found to 
assist effectively toward such fairness. A variety of plans 
for fuller co-operation between the different groups could be 
named. In any event, when such fairness has been ob- 
tained, the process of the creative evolution becomes a 
circle beneficent at every point — ^more buying power for the 
masses, more demands for goods, more jobs, more skill for 
permitting low labor costs without low wages, cheaper 
products, more buying power, more demands, etc., etc. 

At present the tendency of governments to build up 
navies opposes all this. It is assumed that these navies 
serve their purpose only when the situation becomes acute — 
that they are more or less useless until their guns are fired. 
As a matter of fact, the mere existence of those guns is 
utilized for its psychological power from day to day to back 
up the interests of the country's producers and distributors 
in foreign markets. The moment, then, that a nation's 
ability to meet international competition becomes en- 



312 FULL UP AND FED UP 

dangered, whether through the lack of properly scientific 
processes of production or distribution, the tendency is 
constantly to depend more and more upon the psychologi- 
cal assistance of armaments. Quite naturally, therefore, 
the next world war will be a war for jobs — ^unless the world 
can somehow cease to consider that the number of jobs is 
definitely fixed and limited. 

The great opportunity, therefore, for the League of 
Nations — or its substitute — is to provide a means whereby 
to help develop the needs of the various races, and then to 
aid in making the circle of their satisfaction through the 
industries of their own or other countries as universally fair 
and beneficent as possible. If it did nothing more than 
gather and distribute, on a world-wide basis, information 
regarding the needs, the resources, and the capacities of the 
different parts of the complex world circle of needers and 
servers, it would become indispensable, for this of itself 
would serve enormously to develop those international ser- 
vices which are only the reverse side of international needs. 
Such information and the resultant adjustment of services 
and benefits might of itself suffice to develop such under- 
standings as would prevent the need of protecting jobs by 
killing off or " hog-tying '^ competitors with the help of 
cannon. 

Even such an information service would also make it 
enormously easier than now for all of us to see that the 
circle of unlimited creative evolution means that the well- 
being — the maximum well-being — of every nation is a mat- 
ter of genuine concern to every other nation. The can- 
celled automobile orders from Great Britain brought the 
first '4ay-offs'' for America's workers in Detroit and Cleve- 
land in the fall of 1920. Those cancellations followed di- 
rectly upon the lowered value of the pound sterling. This 
in turn was one direct result of the unhappiness of my miner 
friends in South Wales. Every country is now on the 



THE DOMESTIC PAY ENVELOPE 313 

watch against the admittance of the Bolshevist agitator. 
But he does no harm unless he finds an audience among 
great groups of Usteners who are '^fair oon'appy/' as in the 
Rhondda mining town. The roof of Great Britain cannot 
suffer the cracks and strains produced by those revolution- 
ary songs of my miner friends on 'Hhe bottom'^ without 
threatening the jobs of American workers. And nothing 
threatens the normal current of men's thinking and convic- 
tions so much as the threatening of their jobs. No one 
knows at this moment how many months of unemployment 
in America will be required before millions of men may get 
into that same dangerous ^^Fed up !'' mood. In every part 
of the world the workers here must have consumers there. 
For ourselves it is said that our productive capacities, in- 
creased as they have been by the war, cannot be fully occu- 
pied unless fully 20 per cent of our output is exported. 
''British Strike's End Helps Cotton Here. Final Prices 
Show Gain of 19-31 Points," according to a Wall Street 
head-line of June 29. 

The labor problem has thus become before our eyes a 
problem of the relations no longer between the employees, the 
employers, and the pubhc within the national unit, but in- 
stead a problem of the relations between producers, dis- 
tributers, and consumers located and expressing themselves 
and their needs throughout the whole world circle. Unless 
these relations are maintained from month to month and 
year to year by that highly fragile twine of international 
understanding, the hold of the huskiest palm upon the 
heaviest shovel in the most remote ditch must be loosened. 
There can to-day, therefore, be no understanding of the 
essentials of the labor problem except as we see it in terms 
of the international conditions which favor the increased 
development of world-wide human well-being. That, and 
that alone, is bound to bring with it that development of 
increased human needs which is indispensable to the d^ 



314 FULL UP AND FED UP 

velopment of increased facilities of production and dis- 
tribution for meeting them — ^in other words, of jobs. 

The complexity of this new phase of not only world com- 
merce but of domestic conomerce as well has been de- 
posited upon the door-step not only of the ordinary modern 
factory but also of the ordinary modern home. It is 
enough to perplex the most intelligent of statesmen, politi- 
cal or industrial. It is hardly to be solved simply by the 
laborers taking over full responsibility for the solution. 
Not at least as long as the average working man — ^as also, 
for that matter, the average college graduate — sympathizes 
so thoroughly with the complaint of my Glasgow friend: 
^^Wy should we bother with exchynge? WV not let every 
nation have its francs or its dollars and we ^ave our pounds 
and pence — ^and everybody go his own wye and be 'appy?'* 
As a matter of fact, I believe the American worker has a 
much greater desire to share the satisfactions of the steady 
and self-respecting properly appreciated job than he has 
to share the management of the enterprise that gives the 
job. The British worker, being more unhappy with his 
job and its chances, feels more generally that the only way 
to obtain the larger satisfaction of the steady job is for 
him to displace the inefficient capitalist manager. On the 
whole, it is my belief that the average American worker 
would come closer to succeeding on the job of management 
than would the British worker of the same or corresponding 
status. On the other hand, I am perfectly sure that both 
would exhibit amazing progress in their ability to handle 
increased responsibility if given now a larger opportunity 
to share the satisfactions of the daily job and its doing. 
Such a gradual development of responsibility is more likely 
to furnish a practicable way of advance because its progress 
and its speed will depend upon the ability of both managers 
and workers to secure each other's confidence through the 
closer relations and the demonstration of their dependa- 



THE DOMESTIC PAY ENVELOPE 315 

bility permitted by constantly growing co-operation there 
at the normal point of contact, the job. 

^^It is idle to argue/' so Mr. Hoover has said, 'Hhat 
there are no conflicts between the employer and the em- 
ployee. But there are wide areas of activity in which their 
interests should coincide, and it is the part of statesmanship 
to organize this identity of interests." 

I venture to assert that there are not 5 per cent of Ameri- 
can factories which could not save great sums of money if 
they could obtain those suggestions for improving even the 
simplest of their jobs which would be gladly given by em- 
ployees whose good-will and self-respect had been increased 
by means of greater security and responsibility in the doing 
of the daily job. 

The same identity of interests between the various na- 
tions is to be found not within the factory, but within the 
world market. Certainly that world market is large enough 
to permit the utmost of friendship between Great Britain 
and ourselves. Nothing so threatens the peace of the world 
at this moment as the recent difficulties of understanding 
between these two nations. Altogether it would look as 
though the threat 'made by the Sinn Feiner there at Glas- 
gow had been put into operation and the definite attempt 
made to further war between the two countries. But if 
Great Britain and ourselves, with all that both the present 
and the past have to say about the identity of our inter- 
ests, cannot live in peace with each other, then this old 
world is not worth saving and the late war is proven the 
most tragic joke of history ! 

It is worth noticing, however, that it is in trade and not 
in politics that sore spots between these two — ^and between 
all other twos — ^will threaten. These will threaten all the 
more quickly if we fail to appreciate that America, in com- 
parison with Great Britain, is the land of the abundant job. 
In all humility, too, we should appreciate that we live in 



316 FULL UP AND FED UP 

the land of the abundant job, not so much because of the 
American view-point as because of the American raw ma- 
terials, not so much because of our initiative and imagina- 
tion as of our iron ore and mountains of copper — because 
of our natural rather than our spiritual resources. Our own 
problems have been comparatively easy because until re- 
cently men could find a way out of the evil conditions of a 
factory or a factory city y going out to the free land of 
the frontier. Our frontier in America is now gone. We 
have therefore entered a new era in our national life. That 
era brings with it, and will increasingly bring with it, prob- 
lems much more nearly resembling those of a crowded 
country than any we have ever known before. Luckily 
our producers and our distributers have given to the proc- 
esses of both production and distribution an unparalleled 
study. This study has included the phenomena of the 
finest and most sensitive reactions having to do with the 
development and direction of human needs in the midst 
of the human relations of modern trade and commerce. 
As a result of this, American competitors to-day accept and 
practise to an extent unknown elsewhere the doctrine of 
creative evolution. To an extent unparalleled elsewhere, 
the sword points of competitive business have been beaten 
into ploughshares for cultivating fresh crops of buyers. 

These crops, however, have been grown mainly in the 
home fields. As we grow closer to the condition of '^Full 
up !'' we must more and more take interest in the problem 
of the successful cultivation of foreign markets. In all 
ways, accordingly, our problems will approach those of 
Great Britain to-day. There it comes about naturally 
enough that the worker pays too much in terms of Oppor- 
tunity for his Security. Here we pay too much in terms of 
Security for our Opportunity. And, incidentally, most of 
us assume too blithely that the opportunity of the old con- 
tacts in the small machine-shop is carried over by some 



THE DOMESTIC PAY ENVELOPE 317 

strange magic and still exist in our huge plants without the 
necessity of organized attention. Somewhere between these 
two extremes Ues the efficient and happy nation. 

All of us wish there were some easy way of achieving just 
this. That wish is the father of a vast deal of thinking 
about this system or that — something that will somehow 
work while we sleep. But ^Hhere ain't no such animal !'' 
The reason is that no scheme of itself will work except as 
we — all of us — ^put behind it all the resources of both our 
minds and our sympathies in the form of an intelligent 
and kindly public opinion. 

And there's the rub ! 



CHAPTER XIII 

GAN WE GET "THE AIR" TO THE "WORKING PAGES" 
IN THE WORLD FACTORY MINE? 

Let me put it this way: 

In college days I worked my passage to Europe as '^sec- 
ond assistant scullion'' on a cattle boat. After every meal 
the pantryman would push back onto the galley tables 
the dripping-pans of the roasts and other foods left after 
the first-cabin passengers had been served. 

'^Give that to the engineer's mess to-morrow. This for 
first-cabin soup to-night." So old Peter, the chef, would 
decree, Uke the czar he was. '^And that — ^into the ^ black 
pan' with it!" 

By night the ^^ black pan" would be piled high with a 
conglomeration of cutlets, potatoes, cabbage, etc., etc. — 
perfectly good food in the particular, but highly unappetiz- 
ing in the mass. At eight o'clock there would be a hesi- 
tating knock at the galley door. 

^^'Tis oor turn for the black pan, sir!" would come in a 
whisper from a sailor, a stoker, or an oiler. 

^^ Black-pan night" was feast night in the forecastle! 
During the voyage the sailors mildly protested and marched 
past the captain showing the day's food as provided. They 
asked for fresh bread once a day ! That instead of the tiny 
loaves served only twice a week — I recall that the first loaf 
I ever saw when served me as a cattleman the summer 
preceding looked like salvation from starvation, because 
the food had been practically uneatable. I heard the 
pantryman say, the night of the ^^ mutiny" that before he'd 

318 



CAN WE GET ''THE AIR"? 319 

serve fresh bread daily, he'd ''see the bloody devils in 'ell 
first!" Every night of the voyage my mouth watered as 
I watched him eating the ice-cream which never was allowed 
to enter the galley. 

How could such amazing differences in conditions exist 
on shipboard after they had been so largely abohshed else- 
where? Because a ship suffers always from a bad case of 
what can be called "compartment-itis." Public opinion 
on board would correct the s tuation quickly if it had the 
information, but public opinion was deaf, blind, and 
dumb — therefore powerless — ^because on the ordinary ship 
it did not have the facts. The eason it did not have the 
facts is because steel partitions keep all the different groups 
apart — smiles apart psychologically, though often scarcely 
an eighth of an inch apart in actuality. 

Now the problem of successful ship operation does'^not 
require suddenly asking the stokers to come up and sit in 
the passengers' chairs, nor to have them and the sailors and 
the oilers form a committee to supplant the captain. It 
does involve, doubtless, some plan of representative dealing 
whereby each group as a whole can have something to say 
about the conditions of its work — that is, about the giving 
of its golden egg of service. It also requires making sure 
that the passengers themselves in one form or another, 
contribute their just quid pro quo for their leisurely enjoy- 
ment of the chairs. But most of all, the successful opera- 
tion and safety of the ship — ^and that means everybody~on 
it — requires that each shall have an intelligent and sympa- 
thetic understanding of the service performed by all the 
others, and so be able to award proportionate recognition 
of that service in terms of wages, hours, conditions, leisure, 
and partnership — all the forms that finally spell satisfactions. 
Without this proportionate recognition of our worth as 
obtained by the demonstration of our service, the main- 
spring within each and all of us refuses to release its energy. 



320 FULL UP AND FED UP 

Each of us continues to lay the golden egg of our service 
only as long as we observe a satisfactory proportion between 
our individual effort and our individual result. 

A better balance of interests in that circle of needs and 
services is urgently called for. But neither government, man- 
agers, statesmen, workers, nor consumers can work out this 
matter of balanced recognitions of comparative services by 
themselves alone. Laws may or may not help — ^in the long 
run it requires an intelligent and sympathetic public opin- 
ion. In whatever form of society we adopt, the whole ad- 
justment of the machine will depend upon that. 

What we have failed to see is that this, in itself, has be- 
come an amazingly dijfficult affair within the past few years. 
As the heirs of all the ages, and especially of an industrialized 
and internationalized world, present-day society suffers 
from as bad a case of ^^compartment-itis'^ as the worst and 
the oldest of ocean liners. 

The living compartment of the worker is made enormously 
difficult of access by his working compartment in modern 
specialized industry. Yet somehow or other that propor- 
tionate recognition must be got through to the worker at 
his work if he is to be happy in making his contribution — 
his indispensable contribution. 

Take the coal-miner, for instance. He constitutes, in 
my opinion, one of the most pressing and dangerous prob- 
lems in modern society. The real reason is that his job 
takes him away off into a separate town in an isolated part 
of the country, and then carries him, first, a thousand feet 
into the ground, and then a mile or two back into a dark, 
small room. By the necessities of his service he lives, as 
it were, in our very cellars — we cannot live without him. 
Yet we never see him. How can we get through from him 
our understanding of the compulsion of his job, which de- 
termines the conditions not only of his living, but of his 
thinking? And then how can we get through to him our 



CAN WE GET ^^THE AIR"? 321 

consequent recognition of his worth and his right to a normal 
Ufe? 

Well, the mining engineers have had the same problem 
with ventilation. In the old days it was considered enough, 
in a small and simple mine, to change the air in the main 
butts and headings. To-day the miner who feels any stop- 
page of air ^'at the face'^ immediately stops work. It is 
there that the gas comes from the coal; it is from there it 
must be removed. Elaborate laws lay down the number of 
feet at which a ^^break-through'' must be placed whereby 
the air is continuously circulated right up to the face and 
away. The '^bradish-man,'' or carpenter, knows that the 
greatest of disasters can come if, by his carelessness, some 
door leaks and the air can short-circuit itself in other chan- 
nels than up to and past the ^^ working faces.'' 

To-day all of us millions who earn our living above ground 
are working in a vast and complicated array of rooms in the 
world-wide mine of modern industry. In the main butts 
and headings — at the town hall, the polls, the school, cham- 
ber of commerce, the club, the church — ^we meet each other 
and come to know and be known. Our doings there give 
slight chance for danger. But at the ^'working faces" away 
back in the darkness of some highly specialized job — like the 
docker's or the hobo's, or the twelve-hour steel worker's — 
men put their picks into the tiny pockets of danger-gas. 
Slight volatile little sensations of fatigue or discouragement, 
unsatisfied hopes, misunderstandings, suspicions — these can 
never be carried away until somehow we can get the air of 
public understandings — ^and recognitions — better circulated 
than at present. 

Because of this, public thinking finds it difficult to under- 
stand the thoughts of men, not only on their jobs but in 
their more general lives as citizens. For in these days it 
is impossible for men to show their qualities as citizens very 
far apart from their qualities as workers. We live our way. 



322 FULL UP AND FED UP 

it cannot be repeated too often, into all the rooms of our 
thinking infinitely more than we think our way into the 
rooms of our living. For practically everybody, compara- 
tively speaking, the most driving part of the living of our 
life is there in the rooms where we earn our living. 

At this moment there is huge danger in the world factory 
mine because ventilation has not kept up with the elabora- 
tion of modern life and work. A vast quantity of men's 
recognition and understanding of each other is being short- 
circuited away from ^Hhe working faces.'' As the result, 
men are showing less interest in their jobs. Then other mil- 
lions use that lessened activity as an argument to prove that 
men never want to work anyway — that human beings always 
follow the line of least resistance. That is a lie! MenfoU 
low the line, not of least resistance, hut the line of utmost recog^ 
nitions and satisfactions per unit of effort expended. When 
the recognitions are short-circuited away from the face, 
then, of course, men think of laying aside their tools. 

The public controls. The public must understand its 
job just now is to get the circulation restored. It must have 
a larger faith in those who are too far away for it to see. 
It must fortify that faith with a better understanding of 
their service, and it must get the manifestation of that 
larger faith in terms of recognition to the workers at their 
work. In any system of society it will be just as essential 
and just as difficult. It is too late to try to solve the prob- 
lem by going back to the point where every worker was an 
individual craftsman working in his own shop on the open 
street. That meant too high costs — and these meant the 
denial of great fields of service to millions. It is the de- 
mands of those needs of inexpensive services which, after 
all, are at the bottom of our ^^compartment-itis." We must 
accept it but conquer and subdue it. 

''Alius mind thot ye keep goin' with the air in yer face !" 
said the old repairer, down in the darkness one day, when I 



' ^ CAN WE GET ^'THE AIR''? 323 

asked how a fellow could get out of a mine after he had 
lost his light. 

Men will march by millions straight up to the cannon^s 
mouth, if only as they move they can feel upon their faces 
the breath of your recognition and mine of the glory of their 
exploit — an exploit made possible only by the nobility of 
their souls. 

The same hope and hunger is in the same hearts when 
men arise for the daily job while the whistle blows or the 
'' knocker-up'' pursues his noisy way. These men them- 
selves are no different from the craftsmen and artificers of 
old. Their prayer — ^and therefore their power — is the 
same. It is we and our distance from them on the other 
side of those thin steel compartments of modern life who 
make more difficult the answer of that prayer. And with- 
out some answer to that prayer the whole great wheel of 
the world's life and happiness begins to slow down. 

"Let us now praise famous men 
Even the artificer and workmaster, 
That passeth his time by night as by day; 
They that cut gravings of signets, 
And his diligence is to make great variety; 
He setteth his heart to preserve likeness in his portraiture, 
And is wakeful to finish his work. 

So is the smith sitting by the anvil, 

And considering the unwrought iron; 

The vapour of the fire wasteth his flesh, 

And in the heat of the furnace doth he wrestle with his work; 

The noise of the hammer is ever in his ear. 

And his eyes are upon the pattem of the vessel. 

He setteth his heart upon perfecting his works. 

And is wakeful to adorn them perfectly. 

So is the potter sitting at his work, 

And turning the wheel about with his feet, 

Who is always anxiously set at his work, 



324 FULL UP AND FED UP 

And all his handiwork is by measure; 
He fashioneth the clay with his arm, 
And bendeth its strength in front of his feet; 
He applieth his heart to finish the glazing, 
And is wakeful to make clean the furnace. 

All these put their trust in their hands. 

And each becometh wise in his own works. 

Yes, though they be not sought for in the council of the people, 

Nor be exalted in the assembly; 

Though they sit not on the seat of the judge, 

Nor understand the covenant of judgment; 

Though they declare not instruction and judgment, 

And be not found among them that utter dark sa3dngs; 

Yet without these shall not a city be inhabited, 

Nor shall men sojourn or walk up and down therein. 

For these maintain the fabric of the world 

And in the handiwork of their craft is their prayer. ^^ 

— Ecclesiasticus. 



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